


Phandom Phight Club 2019

by dumbdpaus, Taliax



Series: Phandom Phight Club [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, Phandom Phight Club, Phandom Shenanigans, T for making fun of Birch Tree Fartman, and characters getting yeeted out of the ring, do not take this seriously, fandom event, nothing graphic though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-01-30 21:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21434653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbdpaus/pseuds/dumbdpaus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taliax/pseuds/Taliax
Summary: Denny's Presents: Immortal Kombat!  A fic written for the results of the Phandom Phight Club 2019 on tumblr.  Featuring self-inserts, phandom OCs, Danny Phantom himself, Butch Hartman wielding the Reality Gauntlet, overuse of memes, and gratuitous kazoo playing.  Relive one of the weirdest phandom events, now compiled in one place for ease of reading.
Series: Phandom Phight Club [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545274
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. Round 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re not in the Danny Phantom fandom on tumblr, this fic will probably make no sense to you. This was the writeup I did for the Phandom Phight Club event in January 2019, featuring a self-insert announcer, lots of terrible memes, a Ghost Denny’s, and many phandom members as the contestants. If you were there for PPC2019, this should be familiar to you; it’s a direct compilation and repost of the original tumblr posts, compiled in one place for those who want to read the plot (or lack thereof) chronologically. Very few edits have been made other than fixing some formatting. I’ll be uploading each round as I go back through and edit them. Anyway, enjoy a solid dose of crack nostalgia!
> 
> Official Phandom Phight Club blog: https://phandomphightclub.tumblr.com/
> 
> Follow to stay updated, as registration for the 2020 Phight will begin in December!

“So, uh… nice place you got,” Danny said, taking a long look at the inside of the Denny’s. To be honest, he wished he’d taken a shorter look. What were those lights supposed to be? Some version of himself, but shaped like a slug? Scratch that; he didn’t want to know. Bad enough that he noticed his human face plastered all over the curtains… with some expression that looked both void of emotion and like it was staring into his soul. He shuddered and turned back to the ghost who’d invited him to this weird place.

“Thanks!” Tali said, grinning like she hadn’t noticed his thinly-veiled concern. “Are you hungry? We’ve got some great cooks in the back. Dots can even make a chocolate graveyard with a Shrek face on it—”

“NoreallyI’mfinethanks,” he said in one breath, raising his hands. He’d smelled what was coming out of that kitchen, and he was pretty sure if he valued his afterlife he should keep his distance. Except now he _did _pick up the savory scent of dumplings. Still, better not risk it. He wasn’t here for food, anyway.

“Uh, what I mean is, didn’t you need me for something?” He asked, seeing the disappointment on Tali’s face. She suddenly brightened again.

“Right! Come on, it’s this way.” She rolled towards the back door—were those heelys she was wearing? He’d always wanted a pair of those. His mom had been convinced he’d slip and break a bone if he’d had them. Honestly, she was probably right.

He followed the strangely excited ghost through the back door, passing some counter labeled “betting booth” on the way. What were they betting on? If the food here would kill them or not?

Once he stepped outside though, things began to make more sense. And less. How had he not seen this on his way in? The ghost zone was strange; maybe this was some kind of lair hidden from the outside. Whatever the case, where it had looked like a parking lot should be instead was a giant stadium rimmed with floodlights and football-style bleachers.

“Are you inviting me to the ghost zone’s soccer league?” Danny asked with a confused frown. Sure, he’d finally gotten on good terms with most of the ghosts he knew, but Tali and the other denizens of the Denny’s were still strangers to him. Could this all be some kind of elaborate trap? Maybe he should’ve listened to Sam and Tuck and not accepted the invite after all.

But Tali just laughed. “Not exactly.”

Suddenly another ghost flew up to them, holding a small slip of paper in their hands. Tali grinned and gave them a high-five.

“You did it?”

“Yep. We can’t have any unauthorized ghosts in the stadium.” The new ghost turned to Danny, holding out… was that an ID card? “Welcome to the Phight, Danny Phantom.”

His eyes widened as he looked down at the paper ID—_his _ID. Where had they gotten that picture of him? It was the same haunting one that graced the curtains of the Denny’s. _Ghost Zone Identification Pass, _it said at the top. Below were listed his “weapon of choice” and “most powerful skill”—ectoblasts and bad puns, respectively.

“Hey, my puns are _great,” _he corrected. Then he read the “additional information” also listed. “50% alive, 50% dead, and 100% ready to throw down.”

“Pretty accurate, right?” The new ghost smiled. “If you want it laminated, go talk to Lumanae over in the Phighter’s Lounge. We used all our budget on the renovations so we couldn’t afford another laminating machine.”

“Thanks, Mod Vic!” Tali called as the ghost—Vic—saluted and flew back to the top of the stadium. Danny shook his head, still as confused as before.

“Look, can you just tell me what’s going on? I’m finally on top of my schoolwork for once, but I still don’t have time to hang out at some metaphysical Denny’s all night.”

“Right, right.” Tali coughed, looking sheepish. “Sorry. I like suspense. But anyway! Welcome to the Phandom Phight Club!”

As she said that, she spread her arms wide, and the floodlights flashed on all at once. Danny flinched back from the blinding light, but not before seeing Vic give Tali a thumbs-up from high above.

“Uh, isn’t the first rule of Fight Club not to talk about Fight Club?” Danny asked with a frown. Tali sighed, apparently disappointed that he wasn’t impressed.

“It’s not _that _kind of fight club. It’s a crappy tumblr posting tournament—”

“A shitpost tournament,” someone called from across the stadium. Upon closer investigation, she was carrying a baguette over her shoulder like a sword for some reason. Danny was starting to wonder if this Denny’s was where Walker threw all the ghosts who were too weird for his prison.

“Yeah, what Bread said,” Tali said sheepishly. “All the Phighters threw their crappy memes at each other, but now it’s time to for them to brawl out in the ring. That’s where you come in.”

“Me?” Danny asked, a million concerns flashing through his head. “Oh no. I’m not fighting any more ghosts tonight. I already tossed the Box Ghost back in here and—”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about that.” Tali waved her hands. “We don’t want you to fight. We were just hoping you could be a guest spectator for the Phight. We kind of, uh, advertised you’d be here.”

“You—you used me for _advertising?”_

“Well, it’s called the _Phandom _Phight Club for a reason,” Tali defended, though she ruffled her hair and looked away. At first Danny thought it was out of embarrassment, but then he saw she was looking at someone. “Ectolights! Thanks,” she said, accepting a glass of milk from the waiter, who was had a sticky note stuck to her forehead.

“No problem, boss. Does Danny want anything?”

Danny sighed—as cheery as Tali seemed, he had a feeling she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. If he was going to be here for a while, he might as well get something to eat out of it.

“Did I smell dumplings in there?”

Ectolights nodded. “Dannyphantomphandom cooks them homemade.”

What kind of name was _that? _Whatever, it was probably better not to ask.

“I’ll take six of them,” he said instead. Ectolights jotted that down on a different sticky note, stuck it to her forehead too, and then went back into the Denny’s.

“So you’re staying?” Tali smirked.

“Yeah, sure. At least it won’t be _me _getting beat up for once,” he muttered under his breath. “So when’s this ‘Phight’ start?”

Suddenly the industrial-sized stadium speakers began blaring the most obnoxious mix of music he’d ever heard. So obnoxious, in fact, he wasn’t sure he could tell what it was. Like five different songs had been mashed together—through his bleeding eardrums, he caught snippets of Toto’s Africa, a saxophone, Never Gonna Give You Up, Numb by Linkin Park, something from Seinfeld, the Bill Nye theme, and even his own theme song.

“Considering what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me just started up the Phight music, I’d say now.” Tali flashed him a grin. “Ready to take your seat?”

Frankly, he didn’t think he was ready for anything that was about to happen behind this Denny’s. But accepting his fate, he nodded.

XXX

**MATCH 1**

The first two ghosts to enter the ring were… strange, to say the least. The tall one carried a giant pillow that was shaped like Mr. Lancer, of all people. Danny shuddered, really not wanting to consider the implications of that. The other ghost held what appeared to be a singular grape. He could only see that small detail because he was sitting up close in the “honored guest” box.

“Match One: @lumanae versus @hello-torracat!” Tali spoke into a megaphone way too close to his ear. “PHIGHT!”

The two phighters slowly circled each other, Lumanae (he could see their name on their nametag) with Mr. Lancer pillow raised high; Hello-Torracat with her grape stuffed into her mouth. Danny could only guess what she planned to do with that, spit it at her opponent?

In fact, that was what she tried to do, but Lumanae blocked the attack with her shield-like pillow. The grape did hit the image of Mr. Lancer squarely in the eye, for what it was worth.

Then, with surprising speed for someone who’s ID said they had all the fighting powers of a ceiling fan, Lumane swept the body pillow out in a wide horizontal arc. Hello-Torracat was still too far away for the pillow to connect—a poorly timed move, it looked like. What he didn’t expect was the violent gust of wind that the pillow created in the process. The wind shot at Hello-Torracat with surprising strength and speed, knocking her to the poorly-paved ground.

Tali blew her kazoo like a referee’s whistle. “Hello-Torracat is unable to battle! Lumanae wins!”

**MATCH 2**

“So what happened to them?” Danny asked Tali as they waited for the next pair of phighters to enter the ring. “Do you have an infirmary tucked somewhere inside your Denny’s?”

“Eh, we’ve got a supply closet where ceciliaspen hands out band-aids, so close enough.” Tali shrugged. “Oh look! Here comes our next phighters… er, phighter, I guess.” She sighed, resting her chin her hands. “Darn, I was really looking forward to this fight.”

“Someone’s a no-show?” Danny asked, slightly relieved. At least that meant he’d get out of here faster.

“Yeah. I expected a few. I hope he didn’t get eaten by the upholstery before Bread fixed it… oh well, I guess we’ll just have to move on.”

She blew the kazoo loudly. “@rayhoosier is unable to battle! @realnutbusters wins!”

**MATCH 3**

“Next up, it’s a phight everyone’s been waiting to see—@ifellbecausegravity versus @ectopusses!” Tali announced. The stadium erupted in cheers. Someone began a chant of “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!” that was taken up by the other ghosts, creating an oddly energetic atmosphere for an arena full of dead people.

Danny watched in mild curiosity as Ifellbecausegravity and Ectopusses entered the ring. Ectopusses didn’t waste any time; she immediately unleashed a scream that made Danny cover his ears in agony. Was that some variation on his ghostly wail? No, he recognized that sound from deep in his childhood—the sound that Windows XP makes upon startup. He shuddered at the memory, but somehow it also felt vaguely nostalgic.

Ifellbecausegravity crossed her arms in front of her face, skidding back but blocking the brunt of the soundwaves.

“I didn’t want to do this but—AS;LKDJFAS;OIJO;SADN;LNALEW;LWEAOJIS;JLKNF;LKDSALK;FJ!” She screamed, taking Ectopusses by surprise. How Danny was able to mentally translate the keysmash, he wasn’t sure, but it was an effective attack. Ectopusses stumbled back, dazed.

“Not bad, but I still have one more trick up my sleeve.” She smirked. “Or rather, up my pants.”

Danny’s eyes widened in fear at that statement, but Ectopusses just rolled up her pant legs. Underneath were a pair of socks decorated with tiny ghosts. The crowd gasped.

“The fabled socks,” Tali breathed. “It’s been said that once Ectopusses gets her socks, it’s all over.”

Danny raised his eyebrows, leaning forward to see how Ifellbecausegravity would react.

“The aura of your socks—is powerful,” she choked out as she pushed through the magical aura of the ghost socks. “But—I’m not—done yet!”

In one powerful move, Ifellbecausegravity leapt forward, tackling Ectopusses to the ground in a tight hug.

“What—but my socks! _How?” _Ectopusses whimpered. Ifellbecausegravity smiled.

“Hugs are one of the most powerful forces in the world. Even more powerful than socks.”

Tali interrupted the tender display of emotion with her kazoo. “Ectopusses is unable to battle! Ifellbecausegravity wins!”

**MATCH 4**

“Next up, it’s the up-and-coming @etherealtulip versus the literal dumpster fire @lexosaurus! PHIGHT!”

Possibly taking a leaf out of the last winner’s book, Etherealtulip leapt forward with her arms outstretched for a hug. Lexosaurus was expecting that, though; she batted her opponent back with… was that a picture of his face on a stick? 

Etherealtulip quickly recovered from the hit, striking back with a different skill: doing one and a half pushups. Lexx nodded, impressed, but remained standing while wielding her “Danno on a stick” (as Tali told him it was called) like a baseball bat. As soon as Etherealtulip got back to her feet, Lexx was ready.

“YEET!” She called, swinging her stick. Etherealtulip went flying—out of the ring, over the bleachers, out of the arena…

“Oof,” Danny said, wincing. “Is she gonna be okay?”

“Uh… yeah, I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Tali laughed awkwardly. “We might need to hire more medical staff than just ceciliaspen, though…”

“I’ll go get Etherealtulip,” Vic said from the other side of Tali. “She’s probably just floating somewhere out in the void right now. It’s happened to most of us once or twice.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I just hope Walker didn’t see her go flying. Don’t want him finding our Denny’s and shutting us down.”

“Uh, what?” Danny asked. “Is this Phight Club breaking the rules? I thought ghosts always fought each other.”

“Ahahahaha why would you even ask that of course we’re not breaking the rules don’t be silly,” Tali said in one breath.

Meanwhile, Lexx was still standing in the ring, dabbing in victory.

“Are you sure—” Danny tried to say, but Tali’s kazoo cut him off.

“Etherealtulip is unable to battle! Lexosaurus wins!”

**MATCH 5**

While Mod Vic went to rescue Etherealtulip, the Phight went on.

“Match 5: Andiphandom versus Verbally-Situational-Irony! PHIGHT!”

“Meow!” Andiphandom shouted zir battle cry, whipping a laser pointer out of zir sleeve. The red laser blinded Verbally-Situational-Irony, who covered her eyes. Danny hoped that ghosts’ eyes were more immune to permanent laser damage than humans’.

Apparently they were, because Verbally-Situational-Irony shook it off and held out her hand, summoning a giant… key?

“Ooh, a keyblade! This’ll be interesting,” Tali said, leaning forward. Keyblade? Danny had never heard of one before. Must be from some other part of the ghost zone.

With a warbling noise that sounded something like incidental music, Verbally-Situational-Irony shot some kind of light out of her keyblade. Maybe the weapon was meant to amplify ectoblasts? Well, whatever the thing was, it sent Andiphandom flying into the corner of the ring.

“Is ze alright?” Danny asked when ze didn’t get up.

“You of all people should know that ghosts are more durable than that. Ze’ll be fine,” Tali waved him off. “But for the purposes of this Phight…”

Tali blew her kazoo. “Andiphandom is unable to battle! Verbally-Situational-Irony wins!”

**MATCH 6**

“Your dumplings, sir,” Ectolights said, serving up him a platter of six tasty-smelling dumplings.

“Oh, thanks,” he said, smiling at her. He was pretty hungry after watching five matches of ghostfighting. It wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, though, he supposed. Some of the phighters were pretty entertaining.

Like the two who entered the ring next: one held a Draw 4 Uno Card, and the other had nothing but a sign that said “DEAD” sticking out of a headband on her head.

“Match Six: ghostchild-whelp-dipstick-spook vs. spooky-the-owl! PHIGHT!”

“Are you ready to d-d-d-_duel?” _ghostchild-whelp-dipstick-spook asked, holding up her Uno card.

“Sure,” spooky-the-owl replied, “but only if you let me shuffle the deck!”

The pun made ghostchild-whelp-dipstick-spook laugh, throwing off her aim as she tried to hurl the Draw 4 like a shuriken. It fluttered sadly to the ground.

“I guess the only thing you’ll be drawing now is your defeat.” spooky-the-owl smirked. Groaning at the pun, ghostchild-whelp-dipstick-spook collapsed to the ground.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Ghostchild-whelp-dipstick-spook is unable to battle! Spooky-the-owl wins!”

“...It wasn’t _that _bad of a pun,” Danny muttered as the contestants exited the ring.

**MATCH 7**

“Back already?” Tali asked as Vic plopped into the seat next to her. 

“Yeah, Etherealtulip was fine. Said that was the fastest she’d ever flown, actually. What’d I miss?”

“Not too much. Verbally-Situational-Irony and Spooky-the-owl are moving on, and Danny seems like he’s finally started enjoying himself.” Tali smirked.

Danny looked up, wiping the dumpling crumbs off his mouth before shrugging.

“‘S not so bad, I guess.” He wasn’t about to admit that he was actually having a good time. Puns were his weakness; he hoped some of the other phighters would use them as a weapon too.

“Well, it’s time for the next match!” Tali said, raising her megaphone. “Match Seven: Artistically-Gay versus Wackyattack! PHIGHT!”

Only the male ghost in the ring held a weapon, a ghostbusters-themed cross. How had that ended up in the ghost zone? The other ghost, Wackyattack, looked completely unarmed. That hadn’t been a problem for the last victor, though.

“What, you think you can _cross _me and live to talk about it?” Wackyattack challenged. Danny grinned as the rest of the crowd groaned. So there _were _more phighters wielding terrible puns.

“I think I can, actually,” Artistically-Gay replied calmly. Then he whacked Wackyattack over the head with the cross. She muttered a sad “Yeet” as she fell to the ground.

“Heh. He sure _wacked _her,” Danny chuckled. Tali and Vic groaned.

“I like a good terrible pun, but that one was just bad,” Tali said, then blew her kazoo while Artistically-Gay danced to the Ghostbusters theme in victory.

“Wackyattack is unable to battle! Artistically-Gay wins!”

**MATCH 8**

“Match Eight, Phantomroyalty versus A-Walnut! PHIGHT!”

Phantomroyalty pulled a cauldron seemingly out of nowhere, stirring it with a large stick. A-Walnut blinked in surprise, but then pulled out a clown horn and began squeaking it loudly. Phantomroyalty’s concentration wasn’t broken, however. The potion, or spell, or whatever it was, ran to completion. There was an explosion of violet smoke, and then a swarm of bees came flying out of the cauldron.

“Bees?” Danny asked, pushing himself against the back of his plush seat. He _hated _bees. Not only because The Bee Movie had been Jazz’s favorite movie when she was nine and he’d been forced to watch it eighty-seven times, but also because he’d been stung by bees cleaning out his dad’s shed too many times to count.

“Don’t worry, they won’t get up here.” Tali frowned. “Probably.”

Well _that _was comforting.

But Danny shouldn’t have worried. The bees buzzed angrily for a moment before targeting their summoner.

“Huh, guess they weren’t too happy to find themselves in the ghost zone,” Vic said.

“Makes sense. No flowers here.” Tali shrugged as the bees chased Phantomroyalty around the arena. “Someone’s gonna have to take care of that, though.”

Vic sighed. “I’ll get security to handle it.”

“We have security?” Tali asked in surprise.

“Nah, but I bet one of the cooks can lure the bees away with something in the kitchen.”

“Close enough.”

A-Walnut stood in the ring, watching as Phantomroyalty and the bees ran circles around her. Then she squeaked her clown horn again. Phantomroyalty jumped, allowing the bees time to catch up. Danny winced at the sight.

“Huh. We should hire some more medical staff, Vic. I don’t think a band-aid’s going to fix that.”

Vic nodded and wrote something down on a notepad before heading back into the Denny’s. Tali cleared her throat and blew her kazoo.

“Phantomroyalty is unable to battle! A-Walnut wins!”

**MATCH 9**

“Ooh, now _here’s _a fight I’ve been dying to see,” Tali said, leaning forward as two new ghosts entered the ring.

“You’re already dead,” Danny pointed out, to which Tali waved a hand dismissively.

“Semantics. Anyway,” she raised her megaphone, “Match Nine: Reallydumbdannyphantomaus—hereafter referred to as Bug—versus Gosteon! PHIGHT!”

Bug held a long metal staff—the first normal-looking weapon he’d seen so far in this ‘Phight.’ Gosteon seemed empty-handed. Danny thought for sure Bug would just yeet Gosteon out of the ring with one sweep of that staff, but instead they planted it firmly into the ground.

“What the…” he muttered as the staff unfolded into a projector screen. Where the projection was coming from, he wasn’t sure, but it lit up with a PowerPoint slide-show. Gosteon watched, impressed, as Bug began to speak.

“You’ve come to watch a Phight, but you forget that this round was _my _domain,” they raised their arms dramatically, capturing the attention of the hushed audience.

“This round was the stupidest Danny Phantom AU. And I, Reallydumbdannyphantomaus, hold the largest collection of Dumb AUs in the ghost zone. Allow me to share with you a brief sampling of my prowess.”

They pressed a button on their remote, and the PowerPoint flashed through several slides, faster and faster until Danny couldn’t read the AUs that were listed there. He was pretty sure he saw one where his name was Denny’s instead of Danny.

Gosteon watched, transfixed by the PowerPoint, until the sheer power (heh) of it caused her to fall to the pavement. Bug clicked off the presentation, collapsed the screen back into their staff, and then knelt to pat Gosteon on the shoulder.

“It’s been an honor phighting with you, Gost.”

Tali blew her kazoo. “Gosteon is unable to battle! Reallydumbdannyphantomaus wins!”

**MATCH 10**

“You never said how you got rid of the bees before that last fight,” Danny pointed out.

“Oh, I didn’t? Sorry, I’m writing these results at like the speed of light dude, I don’t always remember everything. But we had Dots come out and sacrifice some of her red velvet cupcakes to scare the bees away.”

Writing? Nevermind, asking would just make him more confused. Danny just nodded and turned to watch the next match.

“Now for a Phight between two contestants whose skills are being dead: Danny-Phantorn and Ceciliaspen! PHIGHT!”

Despite the energetic announcement, Ceciliaspen just stood there—because she was the only phighter in the ring. Tali sighed huffily.

“Guess this one’s another dud. Oh well, at least we won’t have to find a different medic to patch up Ceciliaspen. It would definitely suck if she got too injured in a Phight.”

Tali blew her kazoo. “Danny-Phantorn is unable to battle! Ceciliaspen wins!”

**MATCH 11**

“Match Eleven: Bibliophileap versus Non-Fruitloop! PHIGHT!”

Danny had no _idea _what Bibliophileap’s weapon was supposed to be. It looked like a blob ghost on a stick, but that blob ghost was… concerning, to say the least. Drool leaked from its mouth onto the unsanitary pavement below.

Non-Fruitloop didn’t look phased by it. They were just laughing loudly at Bibliophileap’s four-eyed ghost mask. Which seemed redundant, considering everyone here was a ghost, but whatever.

The laughter quickly stopped when Bibliophileap’s ghost-on-a-stick began vomiting up—numbers? Mathematical symbols Danny had never seen in his C-Student life came pouring out of the blob ghost. Non-Fruitloop cried out before disappearing under a glob of squiggles, variables, and numbers.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Non-Fruitloop is unable to—huh?”

She was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder—Danny hadn’t heard the other ghost appear.

“Oh, Planetgalactica. You _are _really good at getting through crowds. What is it?”

“Someone spotted one of Walker’s goons out front,” she said in a rush. Tali muttered something that sounded like “crab nuggets.”

“Etherealtulip wasn’t out there distracting them by existing. That must be how they found us.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Well, the Phight must go on. We’ll figure something out, but first—”

She blew her kazoo for the second time that round. “Non-Fruitloop is unable to battle! Bibliophileap wins!”

**MATCH 12**

Danny stayed put while Tali and Vic went to go check on the front of the Denny’s. He really hoped Walker didn’t find this place—these ghosts might be weird, but they weren’t hurting anyone… well, mostly. Anyway, he certainly didn’t think they deserved to be in Walker’s jail.

When Tali and Vic returned, though, they had grins on their faces, and a squirming sack held between them. Danny groaned.

“Please don’t tell me that’s one of Walker’s goons you’ve got in there.”

Tali shrugged. “Fine. We won’t tell you. But one of our contestants dropped out for this round, so we figured we might as well let Dannyphantom-Justiceleague fight _someone.”_

Together the two mods chucked the sack out into the ring, where Dannyphantom-Justiceleague was waiting with… a different sack full of bees. Apparently no one learned from their mistakes in this Phight Club.

“Round Twelve: Dannyphantom-Justiceleague versus this loser we found lurking out front! PHIGHT!”

Just as the police-helmeted goon squirmed out of his sack, Dannyphantom-Justiceleague released their own weapon. The bees, channeled out through the opening of the sack, hit Walker’s goon in a concentrated beam. Then unlike the previous bees, they returned, buzzing happily, to their owner.

“Who’re good little bees? _You _are! Yes you are~!” Dannyphantom-Justiceleague cooed.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Nightmare-Nyx and Walker’s goon are unable to battle! Dannyphantom-Justiceleague wins!”

**MATCH 13**

“Match Thirteen: a-danny-phantom-fanatic versus Purpleillusn! PHIGHT!”

Danny squinted as a-danny-phantom-fanatic strapped her Ritz cracker-shaped backpack on over her chest. At this point he was past questioning the “Diddles Piddles” and “Danno dabbing on a stick” that were attached to it. Oh well, these ghost’s antics weren’t any worse than the Phandom Phan Club back at Casper High. Even if the ghosts seemed to have a strange obsession with that one dead-eyed photo of him. At least they weren’t wearing shirts that said “It’s Not Gay if He’s Dead.”

Illusn ran at his opponent in the first directly physical attack Danny had seen so far—he jumped and snapped out his leg in a sharp kick. A-danny-phantom-fanatic’s ritz cracker backpack absorbed the brunt of the impact, allowing her to stay standing and retaliate with by throwing the Diddles Piddles at Illusn’s head. Unfortunately for her, Illusn dodged and stepped inside a-danny-phantom-fanatic’s guard.

“Boo,” he whispered. In that moment, a-danny-phantom-fanatic’s eyes widened, her pupils shrinking as if she had just seen Fear Itself in that one word. Frozen, she wasn’t able to react as Illusn snagged the backpack and snapped the stick attached to it in half.

“My… my Danno dabbing on a stick!” She gasped before collapsing to her knees.

“What did Illusn do?” Danny asked Tali.

“I’m not really sure. His phighter ID just said his weapon was Fear Itself.”

He supposed he didn’t really want to know what that meant, either.

Tali blew her kazoo. “A-danny-phantom-fanatic is unable to battle! Purpleillusn wins!”

**MATCH 14**

“So, uh, what happened to Walker’s goon after all those bees got him?” Danny asked in between the rounds.

“Don’t worry about it, he’ll be fine. Bee stings aren’t deadly to ghosts. Er, post-deadly, or… nevermind. We locked him up inside a traffic cone.”

“A—? Nevermind.” He shook his head. “Who are the next phighters?”

“Glad you asked.” Tali grinned and raised her megaphone. “Match Fourteen: what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me versus ghostgothgeek! PHIGHT!”

Ghostgothgeek spun two long green glowsticks in her hands, whirling them so quickly between her fingers that they looked like solid discs of green light. Someone dimmed the floodlights above to make them even more visible. This proved useful for what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me too, who summoned a giant glowing Bob Ross head.

“Let’s paint some happy little trees,” the head said before shooting a laser made of paint out his mouth. Ghostgothgeek barely blocked with her spinning glowsticks in time, and paint went flying across the arena, staining the pavement a rainbow of colors.

“Nice, now we don’t have to repaint,” Tali noted.

What-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me ran back in with another attack, attempting to ram ghostgothgeek at the same time the Bob Ross head did. Ghostgothgeek watched her two attackers approach, then at the last second jumped high into the air. What-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me collided with the Bob Ross head and fell to the ground.

“That’s right.” ghostgothgeek smirked, stilling her glowsticks and strapping them to her back.

“Bob Ross,” what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me murmured. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t worry. It’s… just a… happy little… accident,” the Bob Ross head said with a calm smile before disappearing into a spray of sparkles.

Tali wiped her eyes, but scowled when she saw Danny looking at her.

“What? It’s Bob Ross! I’m allowed to get a little emotional, okay?” She sniffed wetly before blowing her kazoo.

“What-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me is unable to battle! Ghostgothgeek wins!”

**MATCH 15**

“Finally, someone who knows how to pick a weapon,” Tali said, watching Kriber roll in on her brightly-colored heelys. Again Danny felt a flash of jealousy at the wheeled shoes, but he quickly pushed it down. He was a ghost; he didn’t need to get places by rolling. Which made him wonder, why did these ghosts seem to care about heelys so much? Maybe it was an obsession thing.

“Match Fifteen: whosvladagain versus kriber! PHIGHT!”

whosvladagain made the first move, whipping her nunchucks shaped like actual nuns through the air tauntingly. Unless his ears were damaged from the roaring cheers of the crowd, those nunchucks were singing in gregorian chant, which was more unnerving than almost anything he’d seen in the ghost zone. _Almost _being the key word.

Kriber didn’t seem too unnerved though; she swiftly rolled forward and whipped out her leg in a solid kick to whosvladagain’s side. Before she could move back however, whosvladagain caught the rope of her nunchuck around her leg. The chanting fell to a lower pitch, but a louder volume. Kriber tried to pull her leg back to no avail.

“_Estuans Interius, Ira vehemti_,” the nuns chanted.

“Please don’t,” Kriber said quietly.

“Your heelys are rad, bro. I’m sorry about this.”

And then whosvladagain yeeted Kriber out of the ring.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Kriber is unable to battle! Whosvladagain wins!”

**MATCH 16**

“Match Sixteen: jl-artsandcreations—hereafter known as Jordyn—verses enter-unknown! PHIGHT!”

Enter-Unknown immediately began shouting so loudly that it echoed throughout the stadium.

“i'M tHe MoSt BaD aSs BaD aSs ThAt EvEr WaS fIgHt mE. My amazing shitposting abilities ar unmatched. Have u read my Shrek/Izuku fanfiction? Its art. ART. U think ur memes r dank? U think ur pepes are sacred? U think your the supreme 9 yr old? WeLl ThInK aGaIn FoOl. i'M aN eNtRePrEnUeR. i INVENTED strwberry flavored bleach. I freindship dab wit my home girl eVeRy DaY. U think u know crack fanfics? nOt TiLl uve red mine U DON"T!!1! i SLEEP on a fidgit spinner. That shit is mY BED. U pathetic human like form wit ur "breathing air". I BREATH DANK MEMES THOT! I'M TOO LIT FAM! JUST U WAIT1.”

Jordyn staggered back, dropping her scythe as she covered her ears. Danny winced himself, but kept his eyes open to see where this match would go.

Of course, he didn’t really need to see it—he could hear the scream that followed, the unholy noise of Windows XP again. Jordyn did her best to fight it, but was blown back across the arena.

“Thank you and have a ballin day,” enter-unknown said with a bow.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Jl-artsandcreations is unable to battle! Enter-unknown wins!”

**MATCH 17**

“It’s getting pretty late,” Danny noted, checking his phone. There might not be service in the ghost zone, but it was the only clock he had. The swirling green sky over the arena was always the same.

“Yeah.” Tali nodded. “I might have to start writing faster…”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.” She shook her head before shouting into the megaphone. “Match Seventeen: Duncte123 verses ma-tsu-the-male-goddess! PHIGHT!”

Matsu entered the ring by stepping out of a burst of purple and teal flames. That was only slightly less gaudy than the outfit they were wearing—a sorcerer’s robe pattern with cheetah print.

“Ah, yep, that’s Matsu.” Tali grinned.

Duncte stood up to the robe-wearing ghost with an impressive dubstep mashup of Bee Movie quotes. While Danny hated that movie, he had to admit that the ability to make those horrible noises using only his mouth took talent.

Matsu revelled in the painful sound. “You think dubstep and the Bee Movie can defeat _me? _I once watched the entire Bee Movie, taking shots of mango juice and water every time the movie said _Bee! _And my music playlist is full of the worst meme music you could possibly imagine. And the Mama Mia soundtrack. Because Mama Mia is great.”

Duncte stopped beatboxing. “That’s cool and all, but do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

Matsu shrugged. “Not really, no.”

“Cool. Me neither. Do you have any orange juice?”

“Nah, but the Denny’s does.”

“Sweet, you think we can make this quick so I can get my orange juice?”

Matsu grinned. “Sure!”

They picked up Duncte by the shoulders and threw him out of the arena and through the Denny’s window.

“That would be defenestration, which is a crime. Which I am very good at, being the Big Cheese,” Matsu said before vanishing in another burst of flame.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Duncte is unable to battle! Ma-tsu-the-male-goddess wins!”

**MATCH 18**

“Match Eighteen: Lexidius versus Voidetrap! PHIGHT!”

Lexidus clasped their friends in front of them, looking down at Voidetrap with all the contempt a gaze could hold.

“It’s _young _Danny Fenton,” they said with an Australian accent. The entire crowd gasped in horror. Danny cleaned out his ear with a finger.

“Sorry, what was that?” He asked. _Everyone _knew that his theme song started with _Yo_ Danny Fenton. If these weirdos were going to be obsessed with his life, they could at least get it right.

“Um, no?” Voidetrap said, loading a parrot into a large-barrelled gun. At first Danny assumed this was going to be a repeat of the bee incident, but instead of shooting the parrot, Voidetrap just had it scream in Lexidius’s face.

“_Yo _Danny Fenton! _Yo _Danny Fenton! Squawk!”

“Lexidius is unable to battle!” Tali announced after a blow of her kazoo. Lexidius looked up, still being screamed at, but very much standing.

“Hey, I’m still here!”

“Yeah, but are you _really _though?” Tali asked.

“It’s because I said Young, isn’t it?”

Tali shrugged and blew her kazoo again.

“Lexidius is unable to battle! Voidetrap wins!”

**MATCH 19**

“Match Nineteen! Asandygraves versus… aaaaaaand they’re not here again.” Tali sighed. “And we don’t have anyone else for Asandygraves to fight…” She looked at Danny expectantly. He raised an eyebrow.

“If you’re hoping I’ll fight them, you’re gonna be waiting a long time. You promised I didn’t have to fight anyone.”

“Fine, fine. Vic, would you mind checking if there’s anyone else out there looking for a fight? Just in case we get another no-show.”

Vic nodded and flew back to the Denny’s.

“In the meantime…” Tali blew her kazoo. “Foodisnummy is unable to battle! Asandygraves wins!”

**MATCH 20**

“Now this is… interesting,” Tali said, squinting at the bracket in her hands.

“What?” Danny asked.

“You wouldn’t know, but our next two phighters are something of a legend in the Phandom. And, uh, I think they’re dating or something. I don’t know man I’m still pretty new here myself.” Tali rubbed the back of her neck. Danny didn’t ask; every ghost knew it was impolite to ask about when another had died.

“Huh. Well I’m excited to see it, then,” Danny said, and Tali laughed.

“Glad you’re finally enjoying yourself, Danny. Now!” She cleared her throat before shouting into the megaphone. “Match Twenty: punk “Audi” halfghosts vs. narwhals “Rey” arefalling! PHIGHT!”

The two ghosts who entered the ring _did _both carry powerful auras. Audi rolled in smoothly on their heelys, while Rey hovered in a foot over the ground.

“I’m sorry it has to end this way, Audi,” they whispered dramatically.

“You’ll be sorry, Rey, but not for that. You’re going down… with style!” Audi spun in their heelys, somehow balancing on them like an ice skater. The spin quickly called up a violent wind that whirled into a tornado.

“I won’t go down that easily, Punk!” Rey called over the sound of the wind. They held up a hand to cover their face from the asphalt-debris the tornado pitched up. “I’ve still got one trick left… According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly.”

Danny leaned forward, the wind whipping his hair into her face as he struggled to see what would happen next.

“Its wings... are too small... to get its fat little body off the ground!” Rey continued, though their voice was nearly lost among the roar of the growing tornado. Would the stadium be able to withstand that? Danny didn’t know, but he was too invested in the fight to worry at the moment.

“The bee... of course... flies anyway… because… because…!”

The tornado finally reached Rey, flinging them into the air mid-quote. Audi finally stopped spinning, and the tornado faded to soft gusts around them. They caught Rey in their arms as they fell back to the ground.

“Because bees don’t care what humans think is possible,” Audi finished. Rey smiled. The crowd awww’d before Tali blew her kazoo.

“Narwhalsarefalling is unable to battle! Punkhalfghosts wins!”

**MATCH 21**

“Ooh, this’ll be a good one too,” Tali said. “Two new recruits to the Phandom.”

Danny sat at the edge of his seat, already excited to watch.

“Round Twenty-One: Phantom “Bread” Breadproject versus Am- “Aster” Ki-Wi! PHIGHT!”

A timid-looking ghost floated out into the ring. They held a box of Cheez-Its cradled in one arm and wore a shirt that said “If lost, return to Bread.”

“Is that—is that the other ghosts’s kid?” Danny looked at Tali sharply. She just shrugged.

“Aster calls Bread ‘Mom’ a lot, but I don’t think so.”

Bread entered the ring too, holding a white crayon. Danny remembered that ghost, actually. He’d walked past her on his way into the stadium.

“Mom, are you going to be mad at me if I win?” Aster asked.

“Nah,” she replied. “I’m proud of you for getting this far, Aster. May the best ghost win!”

They squared up, Aster holding the Cheez-Its like a shield, Bread holding the white crayon like the kid in the “Power of God and Anime” vine. Then they flew at each other, flinging crackers and crayon bits everywhere. How did Aster fit so many Cheez-Its in one box? They kept flying, piling up until finally Bread was buried underneath them.

“Yay! Mom, I won!” Aster cheered, jumping and cheering along with the crowd. Bread popped out of the pile Cheeze-Its and grinned.

“Wow. You’re a true Phan now, Aster. Congratulations!”

“Not nearly enough trash talk,” Tali said, shaking her head, then blew her kazoo. “Phantombreadproject is unable to battle. Am-Ki-Wi wins!”

**MATCH 22**

Vic flew back to her seat next to Tali, expression unreadable.

“Any of Walker’s goons around again?” Tali asked. Vic shook her head, a frown tugging on her lips. “Worse?”

“Worse.” Vic nodded. Tali’s brow creased.

“Who is it?” Danny asked, worried. His ghost sense didn’t work in the ghost zone; he was unaccustomed to being ignorant of danger around them.

“Don’t tell me—”

“Walker himself,” Vic said, confirming Tali’s concern.

“Crab nuggets,” she muttered. “Get Etherealtulip back on it. We only have ten more matches to go, she should be able to hold him off until then, right?”

“I hope so,” Vic replied. “I’ll go with her. Just try and keep the next few matches short, alright?”

“Got it.”

Guilt squirmed in Danny’s chest. He’d fought Walker plenty of times before, and he could probably do it again without too much trouble. Especially if the ghost didn’t know he was here. But Tali and Vic hadn’t even asked him. It was nice, for once, not being the go-to ghostfighter, but he hoped everyone here actually would be able to handle themselves without him.

Tali and Vic bumped fists before Vic flew off again. Tali then surveyed the arena, where only one ghost was ready to fight. Another no-show, Danny supposed.

“Well, this one’s easy, at least,” she said and blew her kazoo. “Crying-Over-Cartoons is unable to battle! Avatarreigisa wins!”

**MATCH 23**

“Match Twenty-Three: Planetgalactica versus Fantasma-Expiravit! PHIGHT” Tali announced quickly.

Fantasma-Exspiravit changed her face into a .________. Emoji, making Danny jump. He’d known some ghosts could alter their physical appearance, but that was just downright _unnerving. _Planetgalactica cringed behind her pillow weapon. Luckily this pillow didn’t have a picture of Mr. Lancer on it, at least.

“I wILl bE yOuR DoOm!!” Fantasma shouted. “fEaR mEeEE!”

“She’s like the Box Ghost part two,” Danny mused.

Eyes closed, Planetgalactica cowered behind her pillow for a moment before swinging it out in a wild attack. By sheer luck, the pillow collided with Fantasma’s face and burst in an explosion of fluff.

“MY eYeS!” Fantasma cried, her ._______. Face changing to >.< as she swiped at her face.

“Huh. I’m surprised any stuffing could get into eyes that small,” Tali remarked, then—you guessed it—blew the kazoo.

“Fantasma-Exspiravit is unable to battle! Planetgalactica wins!”

**MATCH 24**

“Match Twenty-Four: Ectolights versus Gostriley! PHIGHT!”

“YEET!” Gostriley called, hurling a textbook over her head at Ectolights. Danny cringed in preparation for the impact, but the textbook went wide, flopping to the pavement.

“That attack only works on assholes. Guess you’re cool,” she said. They nodded at each other in acknowledgement. Then Ectolights fought back with a bass guitar playing… Danny didn’t know, the song was too obscure. It sounded like something from the last century, though.

“Nice, you _are_ cool,” Gost said, pulling out another projectile. This one was a fresh ectoplasm and apple pie—Danny could tell by the faint electrical smell wafting towards him. “Which means this attack should work just fine.”

They lobbed the pie, which homed directly in on Ectolights’ face. That was too bad, the waiter had seemed pretty cool to him too.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Ectolights is unable to battle. Gostriley wins!”

Meanwhile, Ectolights licked the pie off of her face. “Mmm. Nice pie. Have you considered working at the Denny’s?”

**MATCH 25**

“Match Twenty-Five: Cluelessintheusa versus d-o-t-s! PHIGHT!”

Dots pulled a deck of Uno cards from her sleeve and began flinging them sharply at her opponent. A few grazed Clueless’s arm, but she recovered quickly.

“Hey Dots, does the road work ahead?” Clueless asked before Dots could call back her deck of cards.

“Uh—” she began to answer, but Clueless interrupted by pulling out a giant orange “ROAD WORK” sign from behind her back.

“Uh, I sure _hope _it does!” Clueless finished the vine, smacking Dots back against the far wall.

Danny laughed in spite of himself; good vine quotes were second in jokes only to cheesy puns. A weak laugh came from the site of impact, too.

“Heh… good one, Clueless.”

“Oof.” Tali blew her kazoo. “Dots is unable to battle! Cluelessintheusa wins!”

Clueless clasped Dots’ hand and pulled her out of the rubble. “Nice fighting out there.”

“And nice vining.” Dots nodded. Then she realized what Clueless had pressed into her hand while helping her up. She smiled.

“An avocado. Thanks.”

**MATCH 26**

“Match Twenty-Six: Halfaqueen versus Needstobehelped! PHIGHT!”

“I’ll have you know I haven’t slept in twenty-seven hours,” Needstobehelped said, her eyes wide and red. “I can see things you can’t even _imagine.”_

“Well, I can drink nine cans of Dr. Pepper in two hours, which also lets you see some pretty weird stuff,” Halfaqueen remarked, taking up their fighting stance.

To Danny’s eyes, neither of them moved after that. They just stood there, fists raised, staring deep into each other’s wide, caffeine-powered eyes.

“Uh… do you think they’re gonna—?” Danny tried to ask, when Needstobehelped suddenly blinked and keeled over, snoring immediately.

“Huh. Note to self, give phighters more nap breaks,” Tali remarked. She blew the kazoo.

“Needstobehelped is unable to battle! Halfaqueen wins!”

**MATCH 27**

“Match Twenty-Seven: Heyheyitsstillgay versus Phan-Pheeking-Tastic! PHIGHT!”

The two ghosts squared up, Pheek pulling out a PowerPoint presentation on a boxy computer monitor, Heyheyitsstillgay pulling out a hefty-looking duffel bag. The bag squirmed, like it held something living inside. Or was living itself. You never knew in the ghost zone.

“Y’know, I was going to fight you with a PowerPoint, but looking at it I think this computer might be a better weapon by itself.” Pheek shrugged and hurled the monitor at Heyheyitsstillgay—but before it could contact, a geyser of glitchy-looking images erupted from the duffel bag.

“Ooh, bad Danno edits.” Tali whistled. It was only then that Danny recognized that same horrible picture of him photoshopped onto all of the glitchy images.

“Seriously!?” Danny grumbled. “Where did you guys even get that picture!?”

“Season 1, Episode 10, Shades of Gray,” Tali replied distractedly. “Ooh, that’s gonna hurt.”

Danny turned his attention back to the fight, where the swarm of images had shoved Pheek to the ground. Pheek squirmed against the staticky prison, but to no avail.

“Phan-Pheeking-Tasticis unable to battle! Heyheyitsstillgay wins!”

**MATCH 28**

“Match Twenty-Eight: andthentheyran versus spacegravedoodles! PHIGHT!”

Andthentheyran started off with a strange song played on the piccolo. Not the best choice, Danny thought, considering the track record of the previous phighters who’d used music as a weapon. For once, he turned out to be correct. Spacegravedoodles dabbed before throwing a chair. Then realizing the chair missed and the piccolo music was still filtering through the arena, they just took the piccolo and threw that. Last of all they threw Andthentheyran, who saluted the audience as she went flying.

“Thank you all! It’s been fun! Cheers!” She called, her voice slowly fading into the distance of the ghost zone.

“Phighters have got to stop throwing each other,” Tali said, shaking her head. “Walker’s _really _going to think something’s up at this point.”

She blew the kazoo. “Andthentheyran is unable to battle! Spacegravedoodles wins!”

**MATCH 29**

“Well, no sign of Walker yet,” Tali said, though she appeared to be keeping a close eye out. “Mod Vic and Etherealtulip must be doing their jobs well. I’ll have to give both of them a raise.”

Danny vaguely wondered what kind of currency ghosts even used. He also vaguely wondered if Walker was going to show up and arrest them at any moment. But he, at least, could turn human whenever he wanted, as long as Walker didn’t get one of his weapons on him first. Maybe he should go take a look himself…

_No, I told them no fighting today. _If he fought Walker, there was no way he wouldn’t get roped into this tournament somehow. And while he could afford to watch, he really didn’t want to add extra ghost fights on top of protecting Amity Park.

He shook off his worry and went back to watching the match, which had already started while he’d been looking for any sign of Walker. When he looked back at the match, though, he almost wished he hadn’t. 

Bitch-ass-kitten seemed to be gnawing on in-the-ghost-mode’s arm. In-the-ghost-mode looked absolutely disgusted, but attempted to defeat the kitten with a hug. Her other arm just ended up being slobbered on.

“And with that… interesting fighting style,” Tali blew the kazoo, “In-the-ghost-mode is unable to battle! Bitch-ass-kitten wins!”

**MATCH 30**

“You think Vic’s still got Walker under control?” Danny asked, fidgeting as he waited for the next round.

“...Probably,” Tali said, her usual casually-confident air gone. “One way or the other, though, the Phight must go on. I can’t refund tickets now. We already used the money to renovate the Denny’s.”

Danny whistled. “You guys must’ve made bank off this.”

“Eh. We got twelve pancakes out of the deal. Bread’s just really good at bargaining.”

“You got _what—?”_

But Tali didn’t answer, she was distracted by the lone figure in the ring, a ghost holding a tiny laser pointer.

“Maybe we should just let all the phighters with no opponent team up on Walker,” she mused. “But I wouldn’t want to risk them getting arrested… oh well.”

She blew her kazoo. “Mae019 is unable to battle! Majalisconvallaria wins!”

**MATCH 31**

The next ghost to enter the ring looked like he could kill a man with his bare hands. Even Tali looked a bit unsure as she announced the match.

“Sapphireclaw versus, uh, Monocheshaa. Phight, but like, not too hard.”

The smaller ghost Danny hadn’t noticed—Sapphireclaw—held up two kazoos. The soft scent of cinnamon wafted from them as she played a soothing melody, something that he never would’ve thought possible on the kazoo. Soothing though it was, it apparently wasn’t soothing enough. Monocheshaa clicked his tongue and pointed two finger guns. Despite those fingers not being real guns, or even shooting ectoblasts, Sapphireclaw fell to the ground.

Monocheshaa looked at his hands and frowned. “Still too powerful. Sorry, little friend.”

“I think she just took two D6 psychic damage,” Tali said sympathetically. “At least we have a new medic now. Needstobehelped can probably fix her up.”

“You say _probably _too much,” Danny commented. But Tali ignored him and sounded the kazoo.

“Sapphireclaw is unable to battle! Monocheshaa wins!”

**MATCH 32**

“No-show again?” Danny asked as a single contestant appeared to the last match.

“Yeah, but I knew this one ahead of time. Hazelnots called in, but I figured I’d at least let Five-Rivers see the ring from the inside.”

Five-rivers had brought her duct tape and as much hope as she could carry in one leaky bucket (the duct tape patch had fallen off again). Since there was no one to fight, she threw some hope at a sad ghost who looked like he needed it, and then recited her multiplication tables as she backed out of the ring.

Tali blew the kazoo one last time. “Hazelnots is unable to battle. Five-Rivers wins!”

XXX

“Is that it?” Danny asked, looking around the stadium as ghosts stood and cheered before flying out. “We made it without Walker busting us?”

“Looks like it.” Tali grinned in relief. “Let’s just check on Vic and Etherealtulip. It’s kind of weird that they never came back…”

When they entered the Denny’s, though, it became clear why.

“Why, if it isn’t my favorite ghostchild,” Walker drawled. Danny froze, sure that this was some sort of trap—but Walker was sitting at a fidget-spinner-shaped table, sipping out of a cup of coffee random-dragon-jtk had just handed him.

“Walker,” Danny growled. Mod Vic raised her hands, though.

“Hey, no fighting in the Denny’s. If you wanna throw down, you have to take it out back.” She jerked a thumb towards the parking lot—the regular parking lot, not the strange pocket-dimension part of the parking lot that the stadium was built over. So, theoretically at least, that part was still secret.

“I think I’ve had enough fighting for one day,” Danny muttered, still glaring at Walker. “What, you’re not gonna threaten to arrest me? Tell me I’m ‘against the rules’?” He made quotes in the air.

“Not today, ghostchild. I don’t see any rules being broken here… except the rules of good taste.” He scowled at the fidget spinner table, then at the heely-shaped candle holder. “But I’ll be watching you all _very _closely, you hear?”

“Yes, sir,” Tali saluted before turning to Danny. “Well, you heard the warden. You better get out of here before you manage to screw up.”

“Heh. Fair enough.”

And with that, he bid the strange Denny’s and its even stranger employees farewell… but he couldn’t help wondering—

If that was only the first round of the Phight, how much crazier would the next rounds be?


	2. Round 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Round 2, ft. a LOT of assistance from Bug (dumbdpaus here on AO3) and lumanae!! 
> 
> Warning: minor mention of vore as a joke

“Oh, _dude!” _Tucker cackled, ogling the inside of the Denny’s. “Look at those lights! Did they make you, what, some kind of ghost-slug?”

Danny sighed. He should’ve known this was going to be a terrible idea, but once Tucker had heard his story of an underground ghost Phight Club, he’d said he’d break into the Specter Speeder and find it himself if Danny didn’t take him. So here they were.

“It’s apparently a… ‘Diddles Piddles,’” he said, looking away from the light fixtures. They all seemed to be staring into his soul as much as the curtains were. “_Please _don’t ask.”

Tucker pulled out his phone and snapped a photo. Yep, definitely a horrible idea.

“So we’re bringing Sam for the next round, right?” He asked.

“Sure,” Danny said in resignation. “She’ll probably just say this whole place is some violation of Ghost Rights or something.”

“Or that it’s not vegan enough.” Tucker laughed. “Nah, she’ll probably think it’s super goth.”

“Goth? Are we standing in the same Denny’s?”

“Come on, they’ve got bat chairs!” He gestured to the betting table, which was a bar surrounded with tall, winged, purple stools. “It doesn’t get any more goth than that!”

“...Okay, you’ve got a point.”

Tucker wove through the Denny’s, spinning the fidget spinner tables where no one was sitting - and some where people were.

“Hey, watch it!” one of the ghosts snapped, snatching her Fenton Toast—so _that’s _where the toaster had gone, not that Danny was complaining—up and holding it above the table. Danny recognized her from the first round of the phight—Reallydumbdannyphantomaus, or what was their other name? Bug?

“Oh, uh, sorry dude.” Tucker grinned sheepishly before hiding behind Danny.

“Wait, a human? What the heck are you doing here?” Bug asked, looking ready to personally yeet him out of the Denny’s.

“Wait wait wait, he’s with me,” Danny said, quickly standing between them. Bug raised an eyebrow in skepticism.

“Really? You don’t know me?” Tucker pointed to his ID, which listed his name as “Tucker ‘Too Fine’ Foley.” Vic had laughed at that request. The picture on it was the important part though—somehow Vic had gotten ahold of the blackmail photo Sam had taken of Danny and Tucker sleeping while they watched the purpleback gorilla. “You know, Tucker Foley? Danny said you guys have a TV show about him. You have to have seen me in it.”

“Huh,” Bug said. “I’ve really gotta watch the show again. Didn’t recognize you. I guess you just look better on TV.” She shrugged, going back to eating her toast.

“Hey!” Tucker frowned. “You can’t tell me this mug doesn’t look great in person!”

“Relax, Tuck.” Danny put a hand on his shoulder as he muttered to himself.

“Anyway, the next round’s about to start; I’ve gotta get warmed up. You better get out there if you don’t want to miss me kicking butt in the ring!” The ghost shoved the rest of the toast into her mouth, burped loudly, and then flew out the back door.

Danny sighed. Ghost culture could be weird, but he was pretty sure the Denny’s held the weirdest ghosts of them all.

“I guess I _am _pretty good-looking on TV too…” Tucker was still muttering to himself. Danny grabbed his arm and flew him towards the door.

“Yeah, Tuck, you look great. Come on, you’re the one who wanted to see a ghost tournament.”

XXX

“Hey, Danny! Hey Tucker!” Tali greeted them when they joined her in the “honored guest” box. “Glad you could make it back!”

“Hey, _she _recognizes me!” Tucker grinned at Danny before turning back to her. “So, I’ve got a question: do I look better on TV or in person?”

He flashed what was probably supposed to be a smoulder, but mostly ended up looking like a possessed duck. Danny stifled a snort.

“Uh, whichever answer makes you stop making that face.”

Danny laughed as Tucker’s jaw dropped.

“Man, I can’t get a human girlfriend, and now I can’t even impress a ghost? This is just wrong.”

“Hey, don’t take it personally; I’m ace,” Tali said with a shrug. “A lot of the Phandom is, so I wouldn’t bother trying to hit on anyone here. This is a Phight Club, not a dating club.”

Danny grinned knowingly at Tucker, who frowned.

“Fine, fine. I can’t blame them if anyone _does _fall for these good looks, though.”

Danny snorted. “Come on Tucker, play nice. You heard her, let’s just watch the Phight. I promise it’ll be so entertaining you won’t even think about girls.”

“That’s right!” Tali said. “Now take your seats, round two is just about to start!”

**MATCH 1**

Tucker stared around at the arena in awe. He’d never been so close to so many ghosts who didn’t want to kill him and/or take of the town and/or world. It was pretty cool, honestly. He’d have to make it up to Danny for agreeing to bring him along. Even if he hadn’t given him much of a choice.

Two ghosts floated into the ring, which was a lopsided circle drawn in chalk on the parking lot pavement.

“Lumanae and… Realnutbusters, I think,” Danny pointed them out to Tucker. “I haven’t actually seen him fight yet. His opponent didn’t show last time.”

“Oh yeah, Ray,” Tali cut in. “We found out the upholstery _didn’t _eat him, in case you were wondering.”

“The upholstery eats people?” Tucker asked, eyes wide.

“Not anymore,” Tali answered, then lifted her megaphone before Tucker could ask. “From the far corners of the Medieval Province, we have our first phighter, Lumanae!”

The crowd cheered as Lumanae waved their large pillow over their head. Tucker had to clean his glasses, surely that wasn’t a picture of _Mr. Lancer _on it.

“I know what you’re thinking, and it is,” Danny said gravely.

“Yikes.”

“Actually, I think it’s more of an _eww.”_

“And from a rather friendly town in the Frozen Wasteland, the up-and-coming Realnutbusters!”

The crowd whooped and hollered again as Realnutbusters blew kisses into the stands. Then Tali announced the start of the match with a loud “PHIGHT!”

“Are you ready to get busted?” Realnutbusters called, raising his arms. At his command, the floor of the ring dissolved, revealing a giant pit of plastic balls.

“Man, that’s gonna be a pain to clean up,” Tali muttered.

Lumanae fell into the ball pit, which wasn’t as deep as it looked. The balls only came up to their knees. Still, that was enough to slow down Lumanae’s pillow attack. Realnutbusters dove into the balls—somehow disappearing in spite of how shallow it was—and popped up behind Lumanae.

“BUSTIN’!” He shouted his battle cry. Lumanae was caught by surprise and toppled back into the ballpit. Everyone sat on the edge of their seats to see if the homeslice would emerge. Two seconds passed.

Five seconds.

Tali held her breath.

Ten seconds.

Silence.

Fifteen seconds.

“...They’re not coming back, are they?” Tucker whispered. Danny looked to Tali, who was still staring with a look of shock.

“Tali?” Danny asked. She shook her head quickly.

“Right. Sorry. I just lost a bet on this round is all.”

She blew her kazoo as Realnutbusters did the Ghostbusters dance before the crowd.

“Lumanae is unable to battle! Realnutbusters wins!”

Tension dissolved, Tucker finally let out the cackle he’d been holding in.

“Dude, that was _insane!” _He’d been expecting ghost fights, but Danny hadn’t given him enough details to anticipate _this. _It was like if WWE, a sitcom, and Vine had a baby.

Danny laughed. “I thought you might get a kick out of it. And this is only the first match.”

If this was the first match, Tucker couldn’t wait to see the rest of the phights. 

...Assuming the Denny’s employees could fix the ballpit where the ring used to be, that was.

**MATCH 2**

“Finally,” Tucker said, leaning forward in his seat with his hands on his knees. It had taken forever for the Denny’s employees to repave the ring over the top of the ballpit. The chalk circle drawn on it was now even more lopsided than before. 

Tali cleared her throat and began the announcements.

“From the Acropolis of Athens, a phighter who’s risen out of obscurity: Ifellbecausegravity!”

_“GRA-VI-TY! GRA-VI-TY!” _The audience chanted.

“And her opponent, a phighter who puts the ‘vore’ in ‘Carnivorous Outskirts’: Lexosaurus!”

The crowd shifted from the chant to aggressively dabbing. Some ghosts even had pictures of Danny’s face on sticks that they waved in the air. Tucker snapped a few more photos as Danny groaned.

“PHIGHT!”

Ifellbecausegravity fell into a crouch, arms outstreched. 

“COME AT ME, BRO!”

“Uh huh, are you sure about that?” Lexx asked while holding her Danno on a stick like a baseball bat.

“I have nothing left to lose,” Ifellbecausegravity said somberly.

“Alright then, I gotchu bro.”

Lexx charged at her, stick bared, as Ifellbecause gravity unleashed her other weapon.

“LASJDLFKIOVADFASKDJ;F’LJWELRLASNLSAN;ASJL!!!”

“Whoa,” Tucker said. “Was that a verbal keysmash?”

Danny nodded.

“Huh. Is that a ghost power? You think you can learn how to do that?”

“Quiet Tuck, I’m trying to watch.”

Luckily, Tucker turned back to the fight just in time to watch Lexx push through the keysmash and yeet Ifellbecausegravity out of the ring. Tucker thought she’d go flying into the void of the ghost zone, but she smacked into an invisible barrier around the arena.

“Oof,” he said as she slowly peeled back off the barrier and plummeted to the ground.

“Well, her name _is _Ifellbecausegravity,” Danny said with a snicker.

“Okay, that’s a decent pun, I’ll give you that one.” Tali smiled and blew her kazoo.

“Ifellbecausegravity is unable to battle! Lexosaurus wins!”

**MATCH 3**

“From the rule-abiding realm of the Observant’s Keep: Verbally-Situational-Irony, also known as Serena!”

Serena floated into the ring, throwing off her observant’s robe to reveal an outfit covered in belts, zippers, and plaid.

“This isn’t the ‘weirdest outfit’ round yet, is it?” Danny asked Tali.

“Nah, it’s just a Kingdom Hearts reference, don’t worry about it.” She waved him off before announcing the other phighter.

“And from the Far Frozen, a phighter who’s survived the cold heart of winter: Spooky-the-Owl!”

The crowd cheered again as the ghost—was that an actual owl? _Cool_—flew into the ring.

“PHIGHT!”

Spooky-the-Owl flew up, white feathers fluffing up to make her appear larger and more threatening. Serena summoned a keyblade and blocked the charging owl, who flew back before swooping in from behind and blowing a giant cloud of frost from her beak.

Serena yelped as the frost engulfed her. Then when the frost cleared, she and her keyblade were frozen in a block of ice.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Verbally-Situational-Irony is unable to battle! Spooky-the-Owl wins!”

**MATCH 6**

“Are you telling me I can’t hit on her either?” Tucker asked Danny when Vic flew up and joined them in the honored guests’ box. Danny rolled his eyes.

“Just think of this as a no-flirting zone, Tuck. Like, a family reunion or something.”

Well, he guessed this was as crazy as any of his family reunions. And there _was _that time his Uncle Mike got into a fight with Second-Cousin Arlo, so…

He was distracted by Vic and Tali’s whispers, but he couldn’t quite catch what they were saying. Tali nodded gravely as they finished, though.

“Change of plans,” she said. “We’re working out some technical difficulties, so we’re moving on to match six.”

“Technical difficulties?” Tucker asked.

“Yeah, looking into hiring more writers, keeping everyone on their toes, giving everyone a more even chance to know if they’re moving on to the next round or not,” Tali said. “I meant to do this earlier actually. Vic just reminded me.”

“Huh. Well is there still gonna be a fight?”

“Of course! The Phight must go on!” She raised her megaphone. “Introducing the phighters of match six! From the Medieval Province, we have the mathematical Bibliophileap!”

“The derivative of 2x^2 is 4x,” Bibliophileap announced as she entered the ring. Her medieval robes, which were embroidered with impossible-looking equations, hovered a few inches above the ground.

“And from the Temporal Domain, a phighter who’s knowledge spans dimensions: Dannyphantom-justiceleague!”

“Oh great, it’s the beekeeper again,” Danny said, sinking deeper into his seat.

“Oof,” Tucker said. He’d known Danny long enough to know his hatred of bees.

“PHIGHT!”

“Come, my children!” Dannyphantom-justiceleague said, opening their sack of bees. The insects buzzed loudly as they circled in a pattern around them, forming a protective ring.

“Ah, a sine function,” Bibliophileap said sagely. The bees _were _hovering up and down in time, creating a wave in the ring. “I should be able to break through if I can calculate the antiderivative…”

She pulled out a scroll of parchment and a quill. Unfortunately for her, the bees weren’t waiting on her to show her work. They clumped together before firing at Bibliophileap like a giant laser—if giant lasers could be made of bees, anyway.

“Ahh!” She cried out, falling to the pavement. “Alas! I must lie tangent... with the curves... of the ground....”

Tali blew her kazoo as Dannyphantom-justiceleague called back their bees.

“Bibliophileap is unable to battle! Dannyphantom-justiceleague wins!”

**MATCH 10**

“Hey you ignorant sluts,” Bug said. “Tali does, actually, have a life. Or like, afterlife. So I’m here to help out or something. Because, unlike Tali, I don’t have a life. Points for me.” They threw up a peace sign.

“Huh,” Tucker said. “Kind of a sad brag.”

“Yeah,” Bug said, holding back tears. “Anyway, this is match ten, a showdown between asandygraves from the mean streets of the carnivorous outskirts and punkhalfghosts from the observant’s keep—which, hey, is also where I’m from!”

Asandygraves strode up to the ring, wielding a metal baseball bat about the size of their forearm. “Let’s get this bread!”

“Alright, so the match will start in five, four, three—”

“Wait,” said Danny, “where’s punkhalfghosts?”

As he said this, punkhalfghosts rolled in on their heelys wearing a shirt that said “i’ll procrastinate anything, bitch.”

“All right,” Danny said, nonplussed. 

“Anyway,” Bug said, “round two, match ten, begin!”

Danny expected asandygraves to start swinging their bat around, but, to his shock, they threw it at punkhalfghosts. Punkhalfghosts zipped out of the way on their heelys and asandygraves was left weaponless.

“Well, that backfired,” said Tucker.

Half a second later, the bat was spinning back toward the ring, into asandygraves’s hand.

“Or not,” said Tucker.

“How the hell did that work,” said Danny.

Bug shrugged.

“You think you’ve won because you broke the laws of physics?” punkhalfghosts asked. “Bitch, I’m on heelys.” 

They zoomed up to asandygraves and raced around them faster than the eye could see. After a minute of ineffectually swinging their bat, asandygraves fell over, exhausted. “I give,” they said.

Bug blew their whistle. “Match ten is over. Punkhalfghosts wins!”

**MATCH 12**

“Why are you still here?” Tucker said.

Bug shrugged. “It’s my day off.”

“Dude, Tuck, let it go,” Danny said.

“All right, on to match something-or-other—”

“It’s twelve, Bug,” Danny said. How he knew that when all the matches were out of order was a mystery.

“Match, twelve, then. Planetgalatica of the Ectoplasmic Expanse, which is real empty this time of year, and gostriley of my nightmares. I mean, Nightmare Valley. You know what, just shut up and fight.”

Gostriley shouted from one side of the ring. “Hey, what if Danny got a job as an x-ray machine? Just turned people’s fleshy bits invisible so you can see the bones?”

Tucker turned to Danny. “Hey, wanna—”

“No.”

Tucker pouted. “Rude.”

Planetgalactica was unmoved. “That’s dumb,” she said. 

“Well that’s kinda the point,” gostriley said.

“The point is it’s dumb,” planetgalactica said. She threw her pillow across the room with surprising force. “Nighty-night.”

It hit gostriley squarely in the chest and they went flying into the domed barrier.

“Did she just yeet them out of the ring with a pillow?” Tucker said.

“Yeah,” Danny said.

Bug blew their whistle. “Y’all are done. Way to go, planetgalatica. You’ll have to show me that pillow move. Gostriley—well, I liked your AU.”

**MATCH 13**

“Hey,” Bug said, putting their hand over the mic, “do I have to say where they’re from for every round?”

Danny and Tucker shrugged.

Bug rubbed their temples. “You’re both useless.”

“I’ve literally saved the world,” Danny said.

“_Useless._”

“Dude,” Danny said.

“Anyway,” Bug said, “round thirty-five.”

“It’s definitely more like round thirteen,” Tucker said.

Bug groaned. “Ok, Mr. Rules Lawyer, it’s round thirteen, with heyheyitsstillgay from Nightmare Valley, where all unicorns go to die, and spacegravedoodles from the carnivorous outskirts. Hey, can you be vegan and live there?”

Spacegravedoodles shouted up from the ring. “No, you cannot.”

“Huh. Bood. Anyway, binches, let’s get this show on the road.” Bug hit the gong. “Fight, nerds!”

Heyheyitsstillgay lugged their duffle bag into the center of the ring and pulled out a Danno. Danny groaned and turned bright red.

“Wait a sec,” Tucker said, turning to Danny. “Is that supposed to be you?”

Danny nodded, unable to speak, and Tucker dissolved into laughter.

Heyheyitsstillgay threw the Danno out at spacegravedoodles, who dabbed it away. “What else you got?” they said, dabbing again.

“Uh,” heyheyitsstillgay said. “Like. A lot, actually.” They flicked out their Dannos faster than the speed of sound.

“Impressive,” Danny said.

“Weird,” Tucker said.

Spacegravedoodles tried to dab them all out of the way, but was knocked off their feet. As they struggled to stand, the very last danno walloped them in the gut and they tumbled out of the ring.

Bug blew their whistle. “Spacegravedoodles had fallen. All hail heyheyitsstillgay!”

“Fuckin’ rad,” heyheyitsstillgay said.

**MATCH 7**

Tucker sighed in relief when Tali finally came back to the VIP box.

“Sorry I was out for so long,” she said. “What’d I miss?”

“More of Bug roasting Tucker, mostly,” Danny said with a smirk.

“Y’know, you’re _really _starting to make me regret coming to this,” Tucker said.

“Says the one who begged me to take him.”

“Shut up.”

Tali ignored the two friends, picking up the mic Bug had gotten installed. It looked a lot more practical than the megaphone she’d been using.

“Alright, next up we’ve got not one but _two _phighters from the Acropolis of Athens! Straight out of your myths and legends, it’s Whosvladagain and Enter-Unknown!”

The two ghosts floated into the ring as a nightcore remix of Cotton-Eye Joe blasted from the speakers.

Danny winced. “Since when did you guys start using the speaker system again?”

“Since I remembered we have it,” Tali answered. “PHIGHT!”

“You’re not a ninja,” Whosvladagain said to her opponent, spinning her nunchucks so quickly they were barely visible. “That means this is the farthest you’re gonna get.”

“Yeah? ThInK aGaIn FoOL!” Enter-unknown pulled out two nunchucks of their own—but these ones seemed to be made completely out of fidget spinners. A whole column of them stacked on top of each other made up each stick of the nunchucks.

“A real ninja wouldn’t be that conspicuous,” Whosvladagain replied—interesting, since her nunchucks appeared to be shaped like actual nuns. Then without further banter, she chucked the spinning nunchucks at Enter-Unknown’s head.

_“__Sors immanis et inanis!” _The nuns on the weapons chanted as they struck. Enter-Unknown fainted on impact, whether from the injury or from the disturbing chanting, Tucker wasn’t sure.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Enter-Unknown is unable to battle! Whosvladagain wins!”

**MATCH 4**

“Alright, I know everyone’s been waiting on this one,” Tali said. “So let’s get it started: From the Observant’s Keep, a sassy slut who’s already admitted to having no life: Reallydumbdannyphantomaus, aka Bug!”

The crowd cheered as Bug entered the ring, wielding their usual projector screen staff.

“Wait, wasn’t that the ghost who was just announcing a couple minutes ago?” Tucker asked. And the one who’d insulted him in the Denny’s, but he didn’t want to bring that up and suffer even more humiliation again.

“Bug can duplicate,” Tali explained as the other Bug waved from the seat next to her before popping out of existence. Tucker jumped at the action. “They wanted to announce their _own _match, but I had to veto that.”

“Could’ve been funny, though,” Danny said. 

“In hindsight, you’re right.” Tali sighed. “Oh well. And our other contestant, from the Frozen Wasteland, it’s the deadest ghost that ever died: Ceciliaspen!”

She hovered into the ring, the dark rings under her eyes confirming what Tali had said. She _did _look pretty dead, even for a ghost.

“PHIGHT!”

For someone who was very very dead, Ceciliaspen moved _fast. _She dropped into the floor, blending with the shadows of the pavement.

“Wow, is she like Johnny 13’s shadow?” Tucker asked. Danny shrugged.

“I don’t know, her opponent didn’t show up to the last round.”

In the meantime, Bug split themselves into four duplicates.

“Great, now there’s even _more _of them to roast me,” Tucker muttered.

Each Bug held a staff, and moving as one, they planted them in the ground at the corners of the ring. Or, well, four points on the chalk circle.

“What’re they doing?”

“Just be quiet and watch, Tuck.”

Ceciliaspen was a dark spot roaming the ground, darting towards one duplicate before being distracted by a different one. Then all the duplicates converged in the center of the ring, merged back together, and shot finger guns at the staffs. At the signal, each staff unfolded into a projector screen, which pourned light down on the center of the ring.

“Get rekt, binch,” Bug said as the blinding light evaporated the shadow of Ceciliaspen.

Tucker blinked. “She’ll be alright, right?”

Danny snorted. “Johnny’s shadow always comes back after something like that. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Besides, they’ve got some kind of medic room in the Denny’s.”

“Actually, Ceciliaspen _was _the medic,” Tali said, rubbing her chin. “I think I hired someone else too though before this round. Ehhhh it should be fine.”

Bug shot finger guns at the cheering audience as Tali blew her kazoo.

“Ceciliaspen is unable to battle! Reallydumbdannyphantomaus wins!”

**MATCH 9**

“That was… something,” Tucker whistled. 

“Tell me about it,” Tali sighed. “You wouldn't believe the stunts they pulled the first day.” She turned to face the crowd. “Moving on to Match 9! From the merciless territory of the Frozen Wasteland, the fighter so good they'll make you cry: Bitch-ass-kitten!” 

Bitch-ass-kittens trudged into the ring, bawling. The ghosts closer to the ring began to tear up and looked at each other in confusion.

“Did I mention that was literal?” Tali smirked. 

“At least we’re not affected, right, Danny?” Tucker elbowed him. 

Danny glared, tears streaming down his face.

“Oh. _Half ghost_. Riiiiight.”

“And hailing from the Far Frozen: Majalisconvallaria! The ghost so good at what they do that being dead is their only skill!”

“You bet it is!” Majalis whooped. 

“You know—I don't have a snarky comeback to that,” said Danny. “That’s just a big mood.”

Tali chuckled. “PHIGHT!”

Bitch-ass-kitten immediately began stalking towards Majalis, jaw hanging open.

“Are they… Trying to vore her?!” Tucker shuddered. 

“Wouldn't be a phight without vore!” Tali beamed.

Before any of them could blink, Majalis whipped out a laser pointer. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” she called. 

Bitch-ass-kitten slogged on, unperturbed. “Why isn't this thing distracting them?” Majalis cried, rapidly clicking the pointer on and off in desperation. She slowly backed up, eyeing the ghost in front of her. Bitch-ass-kitten gave a soft smile as the laser reflected off of her tears. “Who’s crying now?” She whispered.

Majalis’s back hit the ring's ropes with a quiet _twang_. 

“Ooh. This is gonna hurt.” Tucker said, looking away.

“Tucker. It’s a fighting club. That's the whole point!” Danny retorted.

“It’s pronounced _PH_ighting,” Tali cut in.

“That’s what I said.

“No, _you _said _F_ighting. Not _PH_ighting.”

“That’s the same—!” Danny sighed. “Whatever.”

Out of ideas, Majalis yeeted the laser pointer at Bitch-ass-kitten’s face.

“OH GOD MY EYES” they yelled. “YOU HIT ME DIRECTLY IN THE EYES OH GOD

“THIS HURTS WORSE THAN THAT TIME WITH THE CAN OPENER

“HOLY SHIT”

They crumpled to the ground in defeat. The audience stared in shock, still processing the defeat.

The sharp _doot _of a kazoo broke the silence.

“Bitch-ass-kittens has been defeated! Majalisconvallaria wins!”

**MATCH 15**

“Yo,” Bug said, poofing into the VIP box.

“Danny,” said one of the guards.

“Fenton,” said the other.

“Hmm, that’s enough of that,” said Bug as the first guard opened her mouth to continue. Then, they taped over the guards’ mouths to be on the safe side.

“Sorry, friends,” they said. “We don’t have time for that.”

“Time for what?” Tucker said.

“The less you know the better.”

“Wack,” said Danny and Tucker.

Bug cleared their throat. “Moving on. This is round fifteen of sixteen, which you would _think_ means there’s only one left, but that isn’t true! Because time doesn’t exist and words only have the meanings we choose to assign them and nothing matters.”

Tucker blinked. “Well, I guess I’m putting you down for ‘big bummer’.” Tucker made some imaginary notes on his hand. Bug ignored him.

“In this corner, we have cluelessintheusa, who hails from the Far Frozen and is apparently winging it.”

Clueless waved from the arena, showing off the feathers taped to her arms.

“Oooh, a visual pun, that’s a nice one,” Tucker said.

“Aaaaand in the other corner, we have halfaqueen from the Acropolis of Athens and they are _chugging_ some Dr. Pepper right now. Wow. Truly impressive.”

Halfaqueen gulped down the last of their soda and tossed the can away. They let out a long burp.

“Radical sabbatical! And, without further ado, fight!” Bug hit the gong.

Cluelessintheusa flapped her wings at halfaqueen, but all that happened was the feathers flew off. Halfqueen laughed low in their throat.

“Concede the match,” halfaqueen said, holding up their laser pointer, “or I will shine this directly into your eyes.”

“Weird flex, but ok,” Danny said.

“That’s never going to work,” Tucker said.

Cluelessintheusa gulped. After a long moment, she sighed. “I concede.”

“I stand corrected,” Tucker said.

Bug blew their whistle. “Cluelessintheusa has conceded. The battle belongs to halfaqueen!”

**MATCH 14**

“And just _what _exactly do you think you’re doing here, misters?” A familiar voice called to Danny and Tucker. Tucker blinked in surprise at the last ghost he expected to see at a Phight Club.

“Poindexter?” Danny asked. “What, did you not get your butt kicked enough as a human, you decided to come get it kicked here too?”

Poindexter scowled. “Very funny, halfa. I was just checking to see if this new eating establishment served egg creams. It doesn’t, but apparently it _does _serve bullies.”

“Oh come on, you’re a ghost! You know it’s just ghost culture to fight other ghosts. There’s no bullies here.”

“Except maybe Bug,” Tucker muttered. 

“See! The other nerd sees it.” Poindexter crossed his arms.

“Hey, I prefer the label _techno-geek.” _

Danny rolled his eyes at both of them. “Look, just watch the Phight and you’ll see, Poindexter. Everyone entered by their own free will.”

At that moment Tali returned from a discussion with Vic. “Hey guys, what’s—oh.” She blinked. “Poindexter? We didn’t send you a VIP invite.”

“Well I wouldn’t expect you to,” he replied snidely. “Are you the ringleader of this bullying zone?”

“I wouldn’t call it _that, _but I do own the Denny’s. Are you one of those ‘can I speak to your manager’ people? Because I really don’t have time for that. The next match is supposed to start.”

“_You _don’t have time?” He scoffed. “I don’t have time for _bullies _who think they can—”

Tali sighed. “I’m gonna have to call security, aren’t I.”

“Already here,” Vic said, appearing behind her. “Come on Poindexter, let’s go get you that egg cream.”

“I don’t _want _an egg cream, I want—!”

Vic carried him out by wrapping her arms under his armpits, while he kicked and ranted all the way.

Tali cleared her throat. “Well. At least it wasn’t Walker this time. Anyway! Match 14!”

Two ghosts entered the ring, one towering above the other. Even Tucker, who had seen his fair share of ghosts, was nervous about that big one.

“From the Observant’s Keep, a phighter who graduated top of his class in the Navy Seals, has been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and has over 300 confirmed kills: Monocheshaa!”

The big ghost raised his fists in the air as the crowd nervously cheered.

“And from the Carnivorous Outskirts, the embodiment of hope themself: Five-Rivers!”

Five-Rivers shakily raised her bucket.

“What’s that for, so they can kick the bucket before Monocheshaa makes them?” Tucker whispered.

“I think it has hope in it, actually,” Danny said. Tucker whistled.

“They’re gonna need it.”

“PHIGHT!”

Monocheshaa started out with a shot of his finger guns. Tucker didn’t see a projectile, but _something _made a sound as it struck Five-Rivers’ bucket. At first Tucker thought they’d successfully blocked it, but then he noticed the shimmery liquid leaking from it.

“My… my hope…!” Five-Rivers knelt, frantically trying to patch the bucket with duct tape.

“Sorry, Five-Rivers,” Monocheshaa said in a low voice. “I think I know a place in the Observant’s Keep where you can get more.”

“Yeah… yeah, okay.” They sniffed, hugging the bucket close, and Monocheshaa helped them to their feet.

Tucker blinked. “What kind of fight was that?”

“Trust me, you really don’t want to see Monocheshaa go all out,” Tali said before blowing the kazoo. “Five-Rivers is unable to battle! Monocheshaa wins!”

**MATCH 11**

Bug climbed back up into the VIP box.

Tucker sighed. “You again?”

“Me again, binch.”

“Why do you only talk in insults?”

“It’s how I show affection,” Bug said. “Now, without any further ado, let’s begin match eleven: purpleillusn versus ghostgothgeek, ice versus ectoplasm, being dead versus being a math geek.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Danny said.

“Hm, who knows! Let’s fight.”

On one side of the ring, purpleillusn stood stock still. He said nothing, moved not an inch. Even as nothing happened, Tucker’s heart sped up and his palms began to sweat.

“Oh, it’s the fear itself guy again,” Danny said. “At a certain point I’ve really got to stop questioning this.”

Ghostgothgeek shook her head from the other side of the ring. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I’ve got glowsticks.”

“I’m pretty scared,” Tucker said. He called down to ghostgothgeek, “Hey, wanna share some of those?”

Ghostgothgeek gave no indication that she’d heard him.

“All right, binches. I want a nice clean match! Now break each other’s skulls in!” Bug said, hitting a gong to start the fight.

Ghostgothgeek flung out her glowsticks, throwing them at purpleillusn with abandon.

“Where do they come from?” Danny said.

Purpleillusn didn’t move. He stared down at ghostgothgeek like the force of his gaze would be enough to stop her.

After ten minutes of this, one of ghostgothgeek’s glowsticks hit purpleillusn in the head and he crumpled over, unconscious.

“Well that was anticlimactic,” Tucker said.

Bug blew their whistle. “Yeah, this one is all ghostgothgeek. Better luck next time, purpleillusn.”

**MATCH 8**

“On to match eight!” Tali announced.

“There really is no such thing as linear time here, is there?” Tucker asked.

“Either that, or none of these ghosts know how to count.” Danny shrugged. “This should be the next-to-last match, though.”

“Really? It’s gonna be over already?”

Danny grinned. “What, you’re not ready to go? I thought you were sick of this place already.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not so bad. Now that Bug’s not here, anyway.”

Danny just laughed as Tali went on to announcing the phighters.

“From depths of the Nightmare Valley, where they’ve been marinating in darkness for the past nineteen years: Ma-tsu-the-male-goddess!”

There was a burst of flame from the ring, which flickered out to reveal a figure in a teal-and-purple leopard print robe.

“Yikes,” Tucker said. He might have no sense of fashion, but even he could see that that was just _bad._

“Yeah, that one’s definitely a yikes.” Danny nodded.

“And a ghost from the Far Frozen who claims to be very frail: Voidetrap!”

Voidetrap cartwheeled into the ring, somehow not dislodging the parrot clinging to her shoulder.

“PHIGHT!”

As Tali said the word, the speaker system began blaring.

_“I really hate you, Stop getting in my way_

_“I've lost my patience, When are you gonna decay?”_

Tucker frowned. “Okay, at least it’s not Cotton Eye Joe, but—what the heck _is _this music?”

“I Hope You Die in a Fire,” Tali answered. “One of the phighters requested it.”

“Dude, you just gotta learn not to ask,” Danny said.

Meanwhile, Matsu and Voidetrap squared up, Matsu holding a plastic alligator and Voidetrap holding some kind of wide-barrelled gun.

“Is the music getting to you yet?” Matsu asked.

“Nah. I made sure to bring earplugs.” Voidetrap pointed to her ears, where what looked like pieces of cake were shoved in them. How she could hear Matsu at all was a mystery.

“Huh. That’s too bad. Guess I’ll just have to yeet you out of the ring manually, then.”

Matsu swept forward, robes billowing, and swung at Voidetrap with the alligator. Voidetrap ducked and tried to shoot the gun—only to realize she hadn’t loaded her parrot into it yet.

“Dang it,” she muttered.

“Dang it! Dang it! Squawk!” The parrot echoed. In the moment of distraction, Matsu got another solid swing in. The plastic alligator collided with the gun and sent it flying.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Voidetrap said nervously. “I am actually very frail.”

“Are you giving up, then?” Matsu asked.

“Uh…” Voidetrap eyed the alligator, which blinked at her despite being made of plastic. She paled suddenly. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Tali sounded her kazoo. “Voidetrap is unable to battle! Ma-tsu-the-male-goddess wins!

**MATCH 16**

“Poindexter?” Danny frowned at the ghost who was flanked by two security guards. One guard’s uniform had a sparkly sash that read _Fantasma-Exspiravit._ The other guard’s helmets had _Verbally-Situational-Irony _bedazzled on the front—that was one of the phighters who’d lost earlier. Was that what losing meant? You had to sell yourself into servitude at the Denny’s?

“Yes, I’m back,” Poindexter grumbled. “But not for the reason you’re probably thinking.”

“I don’t know what we’re thinking, actually,” Tucker said. “So why _are _you back?”

“Well.” He tugged on his collar. “I did actually get my egg cream, you know. And I saw a bit of this… “Phight” through the window while I did.”

“And?” Danny raised an eyebrow. Poindexter sighed.

“You were right. All the ghosts have actually been swell to each other, given the circumstances.” He frowned. “Though I _do _have some concerns about their taste in music.”

“You can blame Matsu for that one,” Tali said with a small smile. “So, you want to stay for the last round?”

“I guess,” Poindexter said, though he quickly accepted the open seat. The two left with a nod. “This is a pretty good idea, y’know. Giving these ghosts an outlet to release their aggressions.”

“Pretty swell, huh?” Tali smirked. “Enough of this mushy stuff though, we’ve got a Phight to finish! So on to round sixteen!

“Yet another phighter who’s survived the horrors of the Carnivorous Outskirts and can dance like nobody’s buisiness: Artistically-Gay!”

The Ghostbusters theme began to play from the speakers as this ghost flew into the ring.

“Huh, I’d think a bunch of ghosts would be offended by those movies,” Tucker said.

“And our last phighter of the night, yeeting herself here all the way from the Far Frozen, it’s A-Walnut!”

A-Walnut entered the ring with a few squeaks of her clown horn, disrupting the tempo of the music.

“PHIGHT!”

The opponents flew at each other, and Tucker thought they’d finally try for a physical fight for once. He glanced at Poindexter, wondering how the ghost would take it, but he was sitting on the edge of his seat. Maybe it was nice to see someone other than himself get beat up for a change.

But no punches were exchanged. Instead A-Walnut’s clown horn clashed with Artistically-Gay’s Ghostbusters-themed cross. They struck and parried with the short weapons as if they were tiny swords. The _clangs _rang out in time with the music.

“You’re… a… formidable opponent,” Artistically-Gay grunted as they fought.

“You too,” A-Walnut said with a squeak of the clown horn. It broke Artistically-Gay’s focus, allowing her to sweep his feet out from under him.

“THAT’S RIGHT, GET HIM!” Poindexter shouted. All eyes in the VIP box went to him, and he coughed into his hand. “I mean, let’s keep it clean, folks.”

They all laughed, almost missing the peak of the match: Artistically-Gay caught himself on one knee, then struck with a bolt of energy from his Ghostbusters cross. A-Walnut went flying back, her clown horn squeaking sadly in defeat.

Tali dooted her kazoo for the last time that night.

“A-Walnut is unable to battle! Artistically-Gay wins!”

The crowd whooped and whistled before flying off into the void of the Ghost Zone. At least that was one nice thing about a ghost arena; you didn’t have to fight a crowd to leave.

Tali yawned and stretched. “Another successful Phight, I’d say. Thanks for making it Danny and Tucker. And you too, Poindexter. I’m glad you had a good time.”

“Aww, shucks,” Poindexter blushed.

“That wasn’t something I expected to see,” Tucker said to Danny. “Anyway, you think we can get some food before we go? I forgot to order while we were watching.”

“I guess so. You might not like what’s on the menu, though.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“You like neon green Shrek cupcakes?” Danny asked.

“Still probably better than your parents’ cooking,” Tucker pointed out.

“Eh, fair enough. Sure, let’s eat.”

“I’ve got to handle some hiring decisions, so I’ll see you two next round!” Tali said with a wave. “And you’re welcome to come back too, Poindexter!”

“What do you know, maybe I will.” He smiled and straightened his bowtie. “See ya on the flipside, folks!”


	3. Round 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phight Club 2020 is back in full swing, but in the meantime enjoy the writeups from last year's Round 3! This round was a personal favorite of mine.

“Of _ course _you don’t sell tofu burgers here.” Sam rolled her eyes at the waiter, who shrugged helplessly. Their name tag identified them as randomdragon-jtk.

“We just sell what the cooks can cook, ma’am.”

“Fine, then what _ is _on your menu?” She asked, well aware that Danny and Tucker were groaning behind her. Sure, they were in the ghost zone, and who knew if these meat products were even real meat, but she wasn’t going to risk it.

They flipped open their notepad. “Well, we’ve got meatballs with curry gravy, homemade dumplings, rice crispy treats with Shrek’s face on them, pancakes, spicy turkey, pies—”

“Do the pancakes have eggs in them?” Sam interrupted before they could go on for another five minutes.

The waiter shrugged again. “I dunno. I’d have to ask Ectopusses.”

“They have the _ ectopusses _working here?” Tucker asked. “Those things, like, don’t even have hands!”

“Not _ those _ectopusses,” a different ghost answered, her shoes squeaking obnoxiously as she walked up to the three friends. It didn’t take long for Sam to realize that it was because of the bright purple, bedazzled crocs on her socked feet. It did take her longer to realize what nonsense was written on her green shirt, though.

“...Is that the entire script of the Bee Movie?” Tucker asked before she could.

The ghost—her name tag identified her as Mod Tali—grinned. “You bet it is.”

Danny groaned. “This place gets weirder every time I come here.”

“Yep, but you still keep coming. Anyway, the getup’s for a very special round we have going on today! Come on, you won’t want to miss it!”

Sam’s stomach growled as Tali swept the three of them through the backdoor. Tali must have heard it, because she called back to randomdragon-jtk as they left.

“Just get Sam an ectoplasm smoothie, that’s vegan right?”

...Okay, maybe she should’ve just accepted the pancakes.

XXX

**MATCH 1**

“Oh you have _ got _to be kidding me,” Sam said as she watched the first two ghosts float into the ring. One looked like they had shoulders as broad as Jack Fenton’s, but were so boxy-shaped it couldn’t be natural. Besides, the ghost’s head looked way too tiny (and nervous) for that to be their body. The other wore a complete magical girl getup, recognizable to Sam mostly from that one time Tucker had made her watch Sailor Moon.

“The ghosts weren’t wearing anything this weird before,” Danny said, his brow furrowed. “Well, most of them weren’t, anyway. One named Matsu had some freaky leopard-print robe, but I don’t think they count.”

“Whatever, this is hilarious!” Tucker grinned.

“Of course _ you _would say that, you’re just into anyone dressed like an anime character.” Sam crossed her arms.

“This round’s theme was horrible outfits,” Tali explained when she could get a word in. “And believe me, you’ll see much worse than this before it’s all over tonight. So without further ado: introducing our first two phighters of the evening!

“Sporting wide shoulders and even wider dreams, champion of crushing the competition with exercise balls: Am—“Aster”—Ki-Wi!”

The crowd cheered even louder than Danny remembered from the previous two rounds. More ghosts must have come to watch the Phight once news had spread. When he looked into the audience, he even saw Poindexter again, sitting next to an excited-looking Dora.

“And their opponent, a Magical Girl who’s really out of this world: Planetgalactica!”

She spun and flashed a peace sign as the crowd went wild.

“We love you Planetgalactica!” Tucker called, holding his hands up to amplify his voice.

“Oh, _ please,” _Sam grumbled, but Danny just laughed.

“PHIGHT!” Tali shouted into the microphone. Aster ran forward, which looked pretty awkward in the stubby little legs of their costume. They tripped and fell on top of Planetgalactica. Tucker gasped in suspense.

Not staying down long enough for Tali to call time, Planetgalactica spun her way out from under Aster, ribbons of light trailing off her as she did. Fidget spinners appeared in her hands and she lobbed them at her opponent. Aster flinched, but they bounced harmlessly off of their boxy body.

“Yay!” They said in surprise at still standing.

“You get ‘em, Aster!” Someone cheered from the sidelines, holding a large foam finger.

“I will, Mom!”

But the ghost’s distraction by their mom would be their downfall. Planetgalactia jumped and twirled in the air, then landed a high kick to Aster’s shoulder. They toppled backward, arms and legs flailing.

“Awww….” They moaned before finally giving up on getting to their feet.

Tali sounded a kazoo, making Sam wince.

“Am-Ki-Wi is unable to battle! Planetgalactica wins!”

**MATCH 2**

“Your ectoplasm smoothie, ma’am,” Planetgalactica, still clad in the Magical Girl outfit, held out a glowing green drink in a tall glass. 

“Remember, _ no hitting on the staff,” _Danny said while elbowing Tucker.

“Right, right. Does that mean I can’t get her number?”

Sam ignored the two boys and eyed the thick smoothie warily. She didn’t want to offend the ghosts they were surrounded by, but she sure as heck wasn’t going to drink that.

“Thank you,” Danny said to Planetgalactica, saving her from the toxic drink. He took the glass, and—as she and Tucker stared in disgust—he downed it in a couple of gulps.

“What?” He asked, wiping the foam his mouth. “I’m a ghost. I can eat ghost food.”

“...Whatever, man,” Tucker said. His face was tinted slightly green, as if he’d drank the smoothie himself. Danny just shrugged and turned back to the waiter.

“Can you bring us some blueberry pancakes?”

She nodded and flew back towards the Denny’s. Meanwhile, Tali was already speaking into the microphone.

“Alright, let’s get our next match started! Sporting a rather… impractical looking costume, we’ve got the Phight’s favorite bird: Spooky-the-owl!”

The owl ghost flew in, and it was pretty obvious what Tali was talking about - inside the hood of the owl’s hazmat suit was balanced a white mannequin head.

“Yikes,” Tucker blinked.

“And Spooky’s opponent, a ghost who… uh… y’know, just take a look at him. Artistically-Gay!”

The ghost that pranced into the ring wore a outfit that offended all of Sam’s goth sensibilities. Actually, it probably offended _ any _ kind of sensibilities. He wore a rainbow flower crown, short, tight green shorts that said _ God Won’t Let Me Die _ on the butt (Sam regretted looking there), tall socks with either daisies or eggs on them (Sam couldn’t tell which), and last and possibly worst of all, a black turtleneck crop top that said _ Phantom Planet Is Canon _.

“...What’s a Phantom Planet?” Danny asked, and Tali shuddered.

“We don’t speak of that,” she said, leaving no room for argument. “Artistically-Gay is tempting fate with that outfit.”

“What, is it like Voldemort or something?” Tucker asked. “Like, you’re not supposed to say it out loud?”

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Tali said quickly before picking up the mic.

“PHIGHT!”

Spooky swooped at Artistically-Gay, her doll head wobbling in her suit. How she could fly with that at all was a mystery to Sam. The attack wasn’t effective though; unable to see under the doll head, Spooky’s talons missed Artistically-Gay by a narrow margin. He dodged easily and readjusted his flower crown.

“You’re going to have to do better than that. I have the power of God and Butch Hartman on my side.”

The crowd gasped before a thick silence fell over them. Tali gripped the armrests of her seat, her face pale as a ghost—well, paler than a ghost, technically.

“What?” Danny asked, a bit worried himself. Even Walker hadn’t given Tali quite that reaction.

“That’s a name that _ is _ like Voldemort. You don’t say it—you just _ don’t. _If you really need to talk about him, you can call him Birch Tree Fartman, or Elmer, or something else like that. But you don’t say that name.”

A cold chill ran over Danny. He’d take her word for it.

Meanwhile, whatever terrible power Artistically-Gay had summoned with that statement had apparently served him well. Using his flower crown like a lasso, he looped Spooky’s wings and hurled her out of the ring. Tali winced.

“As much as I hate to say it after that particular move…” She blew her kazoo. “Spooky-the-owl is unable to battle! Artistically-Gay wins!”

(Still, as the crowd cheered for the victor, a faint but ominous wind blew through the arena…)

**MATCH 3**

“Cheez-Its?” A young, cheery voice asked. Sam looked away from the arena towards the ghost who’d appeared—and realized it was the same phighter from the first match, the one who’d worn the boxy costume. Was _ still _ wearing the boxy costume.

“Ooh, Cheez-Its!” Tucker grinned, taking a handful of the bagged snack crackers. Sam wasn’t sure she trusted anything after the ectoplasm smoothie, but Danny hadn’t keeled over (more) dead yet, and they were just Cheez-Its.

“Don’t worry, we just hired katphantom69 as a food tester,” Tali said, grabbing a handful of the cheese crackers herself. She showed no trace of the fear that had come over her in the last round, and the crowd seemed to have ignored it as well. Still, Danny couldn’t shake the odd chill.

Tali picked up the mic. “Match four!”

“Isn’t this actually match three?” Sam asked, at which Tucker adjusted his glasses.

“You see, time is relative, particularly here in the ghost zone where—”

“Tali doesn’t know how to count,” Danny interrupted him. Sam shrugged but nodded in understanding.

“Master of glow sticks and pi—the math kind, not the kind we serve here at Denny’s—she’s a phighter who’s ready to yeet you out of her swamp: Ghostgothgeek!”

The swamp comment made sense when Sam saw the ghost, who had taken the form of a giant, familiar ogre.

“Shrek!?” Tucker shouted. “_ Shrek _is a ghost? I mean, I know those movies are pretty old now, but—”

“It’s not _ actually _Shrek, Tucker.” Sam rolled her eyes. Or at least, she didn’t think it was. Who knew, here in the ghost zone?

“And her opponent—she’s here, she’s queer, and she’s ready to spread Christmas cheer—Whosvladagain!”

“Christmas?” Danny said in surprise. Even after the Ghostwriter incident, he hadn’t completely accepted the Christmas spirit. Besides, it was January; he wasn’t supposed to have to deal with that for another eleven months.

A ghost garbed in a green-and-red suit with jingle bells antlers floated into the ring.

“Yeesh. I sure am glad I didn’t die in that thing,” Danny muttered before Tali shouted.

“PHIGHT!”

“GET REKT!” Ghostgothgeek roared, leaping towards Whosvladagain and slamming down her giant green fists. Whosvladagain dodged with a cartwheel, jingling all the way.

“Someone’s an angry elf,” she said with a laugh. 

Ghostgothgeek growled.

“GET OUT OF MY SWAMP!”

“What swamp? This is a—”

As if Ghostgothgeek’s words were a spell, the arena misted over. When the mist over the ground cleared, a murky green muck covered the pavement.

“Glad I hired more ghosts to our clean-up crew,” Tali said.

“O-kaaaay,” Whosvladagain said carefully, hopping onto a thick lilly pad to stay dry. “I think someone needs to sing a Christmas carol!”

“Oh no,” Danny groaned. Sam laughed, mentally cheering the Christmas ghost on.

“OGRES DON’T CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS!” Ghostgothgeek charged forward again, her thick legs churning through the calf-deep muck. Whosvladagain stood her ground and began to sing.

“Silent night, holy night—”

Ghostgothgeek began to slow.

“—all is calm, all is bright—”

She stumbled to a halt, her eyelids drooping at the calm tune.

“—Round yon virgin, mother and child—”

Her knees began to buckle as Whosvladagain kept singing. By the end of the Christmas lullaby, she was barely standing.

“Sleep in heavenly peace.”

Whosvladagain hovered up and flicked Ghostgothgeek’s forehead. The ogre topped backward, flinging up a wave of mud, but snoring loudly.

“Wow,” Sam laughed. “That’s gotta put you in the Christmas spirit, right?”

Danny muttered to himself as Tali blew her kazoo.

“Ghostgothgeek is unable to battle! Whosvladagain wins!”

**MATCH 4**

The next match was a bit delayed, due to the time it took to drain the swamp from the arena. Mostlikelynothuman, Five-Rivers, Asandygraves, Dannyphantomisameme, Dan-Phantom-0, and That-g3-obsessive worked together a speed only made possible by their ghostly abilities. Sam wasn’t sure where all that swampwater ended up, but hoped that the ghost zone had some kind of waste treatment plant. Or else an actual swamp where that much gunk would be wanted.

Grimgrinninghoul was just placing the last few floating air fresheners around the stadium when Tali appeared again to announce the next match.

“Match Eight! Which isn’t the last match, for those of you who are counting! Anyway, for this match we’ve got some real great phighters, so give it up for our first one! Her clothes may be inverted, but her fighting skills aren’t: it’s Majalisconvallaria!”

A ghost in a color-inverted version of Danny’s street clothes flew into the ring to the cheers of the audience.

“They’ve really got a thing for you here, don’t they?” Sam commented.

“More like an obsession. I found out there’s even a cartoon.”

Sam couldn't tell if he was amused or annoyed by that. Probably because it was a mix of both. Danny had always had a fascination with popularity, but didn’t know how to deal with it in the real world.

“And her opponent, a ghost who’s big, bad, and beautiful: Monocheshaa!”

A giant ghost glided into the ring. He would have been one of the most intimidating ghosts Sam had seen—if it weren’t for the tutu that he was wearing.

Tucker snorted, his cheeks puffing out, but contained his laughter. Sam was just surprised there was a tutu big enough to fit him.

“PHIGHT!”

Majalis flew forward, flashing her laser pointer in an effort to blind Monocheshaa. Unfortunately for her, his dark sunglasses were functional as well as fashionable, and they blocked the attack.

Monocheshaa twirled, the tutu flaring out around his waist, and gracefully leapt towards Majalis. Darting to the side, Majalis attempted the move that had saved her in the last round: yeeting the laser pointer at Monocheshaa’s head. It connected, dislodging his shades—but without the laser pointer, Majalis had no way to take advantage of that.

Now unarmed, Majalis was a full mercy of Monocheshaa’s ballet moves. He leapt, twirled, and kicked his way around the ring, stunning Majalis with his blows as much as with the grace of his performance. Unable to withstand the dance, Majalis eventually collapsed.

“This is so sad,” Tucker said. “Alexa play Despacito.”

Tali hummed out the tune of the song on her kazoo.

“Majalisconvallaria is unable to battle! Monocheshaa wins!”

**MATCH 5**

“Oh no, not this guy again,” Danny groaned when one of the next phighters entered the ring.

“What about him?” Sam asked, squinting. “You find the Ghostbusters outfit offensive?”

“Huh? What—no, he just turned the whole ring into a ballpit last time. I don’t want to sit for another hour while they clean that up.”

“Hey, we could always eat more free pancakes!” Tucker grinned, scarfing down more of the blueberry goodness that one of the waiters had delivered earlier.

“They’re not exactly ‘free.’ They put it on my tab,” Danny said, resting his chin in his palm. “Apparently I’m a celebrity, and they _ still _won’t give me a discount.”

“Hey, it’s expensive running a Phight Club,” Tali said. “Especially when we’re feeding you our money.”

Tucker’s eyes widened as he looked down at the pancakes.

“They barter with those here, apparently,” Danny explained. Meanwhile, Tali lifted the mic.

“Alright, you frootloops, it’s time for a match you’ve all been waiting for! Realnutbusters—yeah, you’ve already seen his costume so I’m not gonna make a crappy pun about it—versus the living, er, dead meme herself: Lexosaurus!”

True to her word, the other ghost hovering into the ring _ was _some demonic embodiment of memes. Her whole form shifted and glitched with emojis, Spongebob screenshots, and fidget spinners. The only part that seemed stable was her terrible white bowlcut.

“Now that just hurts to look at.” Danny winced.

“PHIGHT!”

Realnutbusters lifted his ghost-sucking vacuum, but before he could aim Lexx had already glitched out of his view. He spun, keeping his weapon raised, but was taken from behind when Lexx flashed back into visibility.

“SWAG!” She shouted, dabbing as her whole form flickered with the colors of flames.

“Get back here so I can bust you!” Realnutbusters shouted, but Lexx blew a raspberry and vanished again. The crowd sat on the edge of their seats, waiting to see where she would appear.

No one seemed to expect her to appear below Realnutbusters’ feet. With a deep “YEET!” She flung him into the air.

Somehow from their contact, Realnutbusters had picked up some of Lexx’s glitching form. He flickered and pixelated as he flew through the air—and through the shield at the top of the arena.

“That’s new,” Tali said with a sigh, then pressed a button on her walkie-talkie. “Vic?”

“Yep, I saw.”

“Great. You know what to do then.”

“Mobilizing the Security Force now. Don’t worry, we’ll get to him before Walker sees. Or else I’m sure Cluelessintheusa is itching to test out her Security Marbles.”

Tali laughed. “Gotcha. Over and out.”

Static buzzed before Tali let go of the button and blew her kazoo.

“Realnutbusters is unable to battle! Lexosaurus wins!”

**MATCH 6**

“No sign of Walker’s goons?”

“Not yet, anyway,” Vic answered Tali. “There might be… nevermind.”

“Nevermind what?” Tali asked, a little snappier than normal. Danny was right, they were both on edge. It was more difficult to tell with ghosts sometimes, because usually they were all like that, but…

Vic gave him a side-eyed glance. “We should talk after this match.” _ Alone, _was the implication, or at least away from Danny and his friends. 

“You sure this place is safe for us?” Sam asked, catching on to the tense atmosphere.

“So far it’s been just as safe as the rest of the ghost zone. More safe, actually. They promised they wouldn’t make me fight.”

“Yeah, ‘cause ghosts are so good at keeping—”

Sam elbowed Tucker before he could finish. “Look, they’ve been good to us so far. We can’t go judging them just for being in a different stage of life than us.”

“Different stage of life, huh?” Tali laughed. It was only then that Danny realized she’d been eavesdropping on their hushed conversation. “That’s one way of putting it. Anyway, we’re not gonna eat you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Well maybe I am now,” Tucker said under his breath, giving Tali a side-eyed glare.

Tali shrugged. “I guess we can find _ someone _to eat you, if you’re into that. But save it for after the Phight.”

Tucker gagged as Sam and Danny cackled. Tali ignored them in order to announce the next match.

“Match five! Or something like that. Anyway, introducing a ghost who’s about to yee their last haw: Ma-tsu-the-male-goddess!”

“Haw yee!” They yodeled as they galloped into the ring, wearing some kind of cowboy getup.

“Uh, it’s pronounced ‘Yee Haw,’” Tali corrected over the mic.

“Don’t tell me how to live my life.”

“That was the wizard-robe ghost, right?” Tucker asked Danny.

“I think so. It’s kinda hard to recognize them without the leopard print. Somehow, this is still better though.”

“And the ghost who’s ready to Orange Justice their way to victory: Punk—“Audi”—halfghosts!”

“Someone please kill me,” Sam muttered as she watched the ghost, who was wearing some kind of Fortnite costume, dance into the ring. Danny and Tucker cheered like the video-game-obsessed teenage boys they were.

“PHIGHT!”

“No heelys this time, Punk,” Matsu called, swishing their ragged green cape.

“I won’t need them to beat you, loser.”

Matsu ran forward, cowboy boots pounding on the hard (but recently cleaned) pavement. Audi charged at the same time, looking very intimidating in the weird bear costume, but Danny had seen them fight before. He wasn’t going to underestimate them.

For a second it looked like the two ghosts would just run headlong into each other, like a jousting match gone wrong. Then at the last moment, Audi ripped off the mascot head and shoved it onto Matsu.

“Ahhh!” They screamed, now charging blindly ahead. They tripped over the edges of their cape and skidded across the ground.

“It’s… been so long…” Matsu moaned out, raising an arm dramatically towards the sky. The effect would’ve worked better if their cape hadn’t been sprawled over their head. “It’s time, isn’t it? I’ve lived far too long in this reality. The voices… they’re calling me… Goodbye, hopeless fools!”

And with that, they blurred into a cloud of smoke and were gone.

Audi blinked, picking up the mascot head and putting it back on. “Well, that was extra, but okay.”

“Are they actually… gone? Like, _ gone?” _Tucker put Danny’s question into words.

“Matsu? _ Gone?” _Tali laughed. “They’ll probably be home in a couple hours making some mac and cheese.”

She blew the kazoo. “Ma-tsu-the-male-goddess is unable to battle! Punkhalfghosts wins!”

**MATCH 7**

Tali came back from her talk with Vic looking more frayed than ever. Whatever shady things were going on at the Denny’s, though, she wasn’t about to discuss them. She picked up the mic before Danny could even ask.

“Ready to roll up and take names, the ghost who knows it’s gay if it’s gay: Halfaqueen!”

The ghost heelyed their way into the ring, peering over their star-shaped sunglasses. A hole was cut out of their crop top to display the words _ It’s Gay Gay _on their chest.

“What does that even _ mean?” _Tucker asked. Danny just shook his head in resignation.

“And a flesh prison empowered by bad meme edits and PowerPoint slides: Heyheyitsstillgay, aka Anri!”

“Flesh prison? Aren’t they a ghost?” Sam frowned.

“Again with the questions? Tucker I get, but I thought you’d catch on a little faster.”

“Hey, I resent that!”

“PHIGHT!”

Halfaqueen rolled up to their opponent, who could now see the tiny mustache hanging off of their sunglasses. This was just a distraction, though, for a much more terrifying aspect of Halfaqueen’s outfit: the Minions that decorated their heelys. The tiny yellow gremlins detached themselves from their feet, then quickly scaled Anri like the flesh prison they were.

“Get them, my Minions!” Halfaqueen called, but Anri just smirked.

“You think those insignificant specks could defeat me? I am not a mere mortal like you. I have Ascended. I am…”

At that moment, one of the Minions tripped on the belt holding together Anri’s suit. The belt came undone, revealing the true horror of what lay beneath.

“LORD OF THE DANNOS!” Anri shouted, hovering above the floor as their suit unfurled to reveal an eldritch abomination—hundreds of images of Vlad’s face sewed together into one conglomerate of fabric. Each face had creepy peering eyes, eyes that would suck you into the void if you stared long enough.

And struck by both awe and horror, Halfaqueen stared. Darkness foamed out beneath their feet and sucked them in.

“That… that was…” Tucker shook. He’d found a new phobia to rival his fear of hospitals.

“That was… _ awesome!” _ Sam said, eyes wide as she stared where the portal had been. “Did you _ see _ that? _ That’s _what I expected out of a ghost zone fight.”

“Sam… did you not see their clothes?” Danny asked. She just shrugged.

“They should’ve given you black eyeliner. Would’ve been way more goth that way.”

Danny groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “I can’t take you two anywhere.”

Tali blew her kazoo in a tune that sounded suspiciously like the beginning of _ The Sound of Silence. _

“Halfaqueen is unable to battle! Heyheyitsstillgay wins!”

**MATCH 8**

Tucker groaned and pulled his beret down over his eyes when the next two ghosts entered the ring.

“What?” Sam asked. The one on the left wore an outfit entirely made of denim, but Tucker didn’t have enough of a fashion sense to be offended by that. The other ghost wore an overall crop top, monster-face boxers, leg warmers with little bedsheet ghosts on them, and green converse. That could’ve been what Tucker was offended by, but she was pretty sure that if she looked, she could find each of those articles of clothing in his mess of a closet.

“It’s _ them _again,” he hissed, pointing to the jean-clad ghost. They raised a hand like they were going to wave, but flipped Tucker off instead.

“I can see the feeling’s mutual,” Sam said, restraining a chuckle.

“Hey Loser! And hey loser’s binch friend!”

Sam abruptly stood from her seat. “_ What _ did you just call him?”

“Uh, Sam, it was you they called—”

“_ I’m _the only one who gets to call you my loser friend,” Sam said, about to climb over the railing and jump into the ring. Tali’s hand on her wrist was the only thing that stopped her.

“Hey, hey, it’s just how they show affection. Now chill, okay? This Phight is for ghosts only.”

Tali’s calm voice barely held Sam back. But at that moment Danny reappeared from grabbing more snacks and blinked her. He grinned to diffuse the tension.

“So, uh, Cheeze-Its?”

She grumbled but accepted the food as Tali began the announcements.

“Alright frootloops, it’s the last round of the night! Grab your popcorn and get ready! First up we’ve got a jiter who’s jready to jret this jread: jreallydumbdannyphantomaus, aka Jbug!”

“Did she _ really _just make all of those words into jean puns?” Sam asked, crossing her arms. Hopefully Bug would get smashed against the barrier around the ring; that would really make Sam’s day.

“Tali tries, but her puns are mediocre,” Danny whispered.

“And their opponent, a ghost who… uh… you know, I really don’t even know where to go with this one. Dannyphantom-justiceleague!” she finished lamely, though the crowd cheered anyway. “PHIGHT!”

“Can you feel it? The jeans’ power?” Bug taunted, snapping their jacket.

“I can feel something, alright.” Dannyphantom-justiceleague rolled their eyes, dodging to the side as Bug snapped out a kick.

“Here we go,” Sam said more to herself than anything. She might not advocate violence against humans, but ghosts versus other ghosts? It was part of their culture, and these two looked like they weren’t going to pull their punches.

Dannyphantom-justiceleague darted in under Bug’s guard, landing a punch under their jaw. At the impact, Bug stumbled back, giving themselves room to employ their greatest ability.

“Duplication is cheating,” Tucker muttered.

“All’s fair in ghost fighting and war,” Tali said, her eyes glued to the match.

Bug—or rather, the Bugs—dashed circles around Dannyphantom-justiceleague, who tried their best to get in any hits they could. And they did—a kick here, an elbow strike there—but it wasn’t enough. There were just too many Bugs. Each duplicate removed random pieces of jean clothing and lobbed them at Dannyphantom-justiceleague.

Sam covered her eyes. “Please tell me they’re not going to keep this up.”

“Don’t worry, this Phight is completely safe for work. I think. Depends on where you work. Anyway, if they strip completely they’ll be disqualified.”

Luckily for everyone, Bug’s duplicates had plenty of jean items to throw while still keeping themselves covered. By the end of it all, Dannyphantom-justiceleague was buried under a pile of denim.

The Bugs bowed, then snapped back into one. “You’re welcome hoes.”

“Screw you, Bug,” Tucker and Sam called in unison.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Dannyphantom-justiceleague is unable to battle! Reallydumbdannyphantomaus—”

Before she could say the last word, a chill ran through the Denny’s. Each floodlight in the arena flickered off one by one. And then the faint, ominous green glow of the ghost zone was the only light left. Tali froze. If ghosts had needed to breathe, she would have been suffocating.

“Tali?” Danny asked, waving a hand in front of her face. She didn’t blink.

“He’s here,” she finally whispered, snapping (partially) out of it. She still looked as dead-eyed as one of those “Danno” faces. 

“Start praying to whoever ghosts pray to,” she said quickly. “Actually, you three should probably get out of here. If he finds you—”

Suddenly a voice echoed from above the stadium—or inside it, it was hard to tell. He might have even hijacked the mic system.

“So,” the voice said. “Who here thinks Phantom Planet isn’t canon?”


	4. Bonus Round: PPC vs. Butch Hartman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for many jokes at Butch Hartman's expense

“Holy flying ice cream,” Tali murmured up at the sky, where the ghost who’d spoken descended amid a cloud of darkness. “Get down, guys. _Get down!”_

Danny didn’t need to be told twice; he went intangible and phased himself, Sam, and Tucker through the floor of the bleachers.

“What are you doing, Danny!?” Sam stage-whispered. “We can’t just leave them to fight that—that—what _was_ that?”

Something in the depths of Danny’s memory had been stirred at the voice, but he still couldn’t say.

“There’s a whole stadium full of ghosts out there. They can handle it. My job is keeping you two safe.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Tucker said. 

Still, Danny _was _curious. Staying invisible, he stuck his head up through the floor.

“Vic? Come in, Vic!” Tali was shouting into the walkie talkie. All she got was static.

“Come on, what’s with all the panic?”The voice asked. Danny still couldn’t see his face; his form was shrouded in the dark mist. “Aren’t you happy to see your creator?”

“_Creator_?” Sam asked incredulously. “Is that ghost saying he’s—?”

“If that’s God, I’m converting to atheism,” Tucker said in forced deadpan.

“No,” Danny shook his head, which was still sticking up through the floor, so his friends couldn’t see it anyway. “That’s not—I _know _who this is. I just—can’t remember.”

As the ghost came to rest over the pavement—ignoring the barrier that should have kept him out—the smoke veiling him finally cleared. Danny cringed in expectation of some eldritch horror, but it was just… a man. A regular, human-looking man, with dark hair and a cocky grin. He clasped his hands behind his back.

“It’s a nice place you have here,” he said conversationally, staring around the arena. “It’s too bad that none of this is canon.”

“Nobody cares if it’s canon!” A brave ghost shouted from the crowd.

“Nobody cares.” The man sighed. “Nobody cares! Well, I know one person who does.”

He revealed his hands from behind his back, and Danny’s stomach dropped. It wasn’t possible, but there he was, weilding a weapon Danny knew he’d destroyed.

“Danny? What’s going on?” Sam demanded from below. He pulled his head back under to answer.

“He’s got the Reality Gauntlet,” Danny answered in a broken voice. “All the gems, too.”

_“What?” _Sam and Tucker shouted.

_“Shhhh! _We can’t let him know we’re here!” Danny whispered. For some reason, Tali had been intent on them hiding, and he couldn’t help feeling it was for a good reason.

“_Me.” _The man snapped his fingers, and the arena disappeared. All of it—all the seats, all the cracked, potholed pavement, all the concession stands full of Cheez-Its—gone. In one snap.

All the ghosts, fortunately, were still standing—or, well, floating. Several flew away, screaming in all-out panic. A few stood their ground, however, including most of the Denny’s crew.

“This is not good. This is very, very not good,” Tali muttered, staring at her walkie-talkie. Hopefully Vic was safe in the Denny’s, which hadn’t been affected by the snap. She’d have to distract him long enough to make sure he didn’t notice it. She’d put in too much effort to let it get destroyed on the whim of some egotistical ghost, no matter how powerful he was.

“Hey, Birch Tree Fartman!” She shouted into her megaphone, which wasn’t connected to the speaker system and therefore still worked.

“Hmm?” The ghost looked up at her. “Calling names isn’t very polite, you know.”

_Birch Tree Fartman, _Danny thought, remembering back to Tali’s comment from the last round—it was the name for a ghost who wasn’t supposed to be named.

“Butch Hartman,” Danny whispered as his eyes widened. “_That’s _who he is, that’s—that’s the guy who created my TV show!”

“Danny, you weren’t supposed to say his name!” Sam hissed. But it was too late. Butch’s eyes glowed bright red.

“Someone’s summoned me again,” he murmured. “Where is he? I can feel him close… my son. Danny? Are you here?”

Danny’s blood ran cold. Or ectoplasm, since he was in ghost form—whatever.

“Dude, that guy is _not _your dad. Right?” Tucker asked nervously.

“Probably just another frootloop wanting to ‘adopt’ me,” Danny said with more confidence than he felt. Butch had created his TV show, which, through the impossible laws of metaphysics and the writer’s discretion, meant that he had created Danny. Like a father. Only Danny had no memory of it, and had a feeling that that was for a reason.

“Ah.” Butch’s eyes glowed brighter. “_There_ you are.”

There were no more bleachers or floor for protection. Aside from Tali who still stood between them, they were completely vulnerable.

“Danny!” She shouted. “Get out of here!”

“I—”

“Why would you listen to this ghost?” Butch asked, floating towards them. “She’s not even canon. Why, I could just snap my fingers, and—”

“Would you like a pancake?”

Butch blinked. Suddenly floating behind him was a ghost in fuzzy rainbow twinkle toes, a monster hat, and a fanny pack. She was also holding a platter stacked high with pancakes.

“Uh, no, I’m kind of in the middle of something, random non-canon ghost. Why don’t you go crawl back to the fanfic gutter where you belong?”

“Now _that’s _what I’d call not very polite,” the waiter—Ectolights—said, then shoved the platter of pancakes into his face.

“GAH!” Butch shouted, wiping the syrup from his red eyes. “Why you little—!”

“There’s more where that came from!” Another ghost said, teleporting between Tali and Butch.

“Vic!” Tali grinned. “You made it!”

She winked back at her before turning back to Butch. “Alright, Phighters! Execute Plan Delta Despa Dorito 0.25, Reverse Formation!”

At her command, a flood of ghosts teleported into the empty space between them, all wearing the most ridiculous outfits Danny had ever seen. He caught glimpses of croc hats, sequinned leggings, zoot suits, weed socks—even a full-body Gritty costume.

“What—you think your poor taste in fashion can defeat me?” Butch chuckled.

“Maybe not,” Tali said, flying to join Vic at the front of the small army. “But these are some of the best phighters this side of the ghost zone. And some of the best employees too. So without further monologuing—_PHIGHT_!”

The ghosts charged at Birch Tree, some holding their weapons from earlier on in the phight, some just wielding standard-issue ectoblasts and fists. Regardless of fighting style, all had the rabid violent enthusiasm one would expect from an elite team of shitposters.

Before he could be overwhelmed, Butch quickly threw up a translucent red barrier. Spacegravedoodles smashed directly into it, their barred sunglasses shattering on impact.

“MY EYES!” They cried, forgetting to hover and falling towards the depths of the ghost zone.

“See? Your lawless fanon is powerless here,” Butch taunted. 

“It’s pronounced _PHANON!” _Ectopusses shouted before shattering the barrier with a sharp kick from her guac-coated flip flops. Butch covered his heads as the red shards fell around him.

“Alright team, here’s our chance!” Tali called. “Go for the gauntlet!”

From there, all semblance of order broke down as approximately twenty ghosts fought to reach the metal gauntlet. At least in all the chaos, Butch was too distracted to use it. The chaos only compounded when a familiar tune began to play from behind them. It was a glitchy song being scratched out, but a few words were recognizable.

_“Phantom Planet’s not canon, F you,” _Lexosaurus beatboxed behind them while dabbing. The music sent Butch into a rage; his eyes glowed with the threat of an ectoblast.

“Get down!” Fantasma-Exspiravit (who was wearing a vampire costume) shouted, but not soon enough to save Gosteon, who was blasted backwards into the abyss. Meanwhile, Phantombreadproject (in a dress made of ballpit balls) and Cluelessintheusa (in horrible pink-and-blue leggings) attempted to tackle Butch from behind.

“Surprise attacks? Please, I _created _your reality.” He spun and punched the two of them so hard they were sent flying. “I know what you’re going to do before you do. How do you expect to defeat me?”

From further back, where they were floating invisibly, Tucker whispered to Danny and Sam.

“He’s got a point. If he actually _did _create this place somehow, how can we beat him?”

“We beat Pariah Dark,” Danny said, though his voice was grim. “We can beat this frootloop too. But… they might need some help.”

“Danny,” Sam warned, “I don’t know what he wants with you, but be careful. Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

She didn’t have to tell him that twice. Any strange old men claiming to be his father had _bad news _written all over them. Ignoring the danger, though, he flew up to the fray.

“Hey, Birch Tree! It’s me you want, not them!”

Sam smacked her forehead. “So much for being careful.”

His voice distracted Butch long enough for needstobehelped (who was unrecognizable under her Grundy costume) to get him in a headlock. Butch grunted, scraping at her furry arms.

“Nngh… you should've… gone for the hand.” With one snap from his gauntleted fingers, needstobehelped was gone.

No one had time to wonder what that meant for her. They just had to get rid of Butch, _now._

Danny launched ectoblasts from a (relatively) safe distance, careful to avoid hitting the ghosts on his side. Still, it was such a mess that he accidentally blasted Ifellbecausegravity, who was wearing a suit similar to his—only hers had advertisements from Nasty Burger glued to it. Why hadn’t he thought of that? It would’ve been one way he could’ve made money while working as a full-time superhero—but that wasn’t important right now.

“Danny, don’t you remember me?” Butch asked with mock hurt. “I’ve missed you, son. Why don’t you come back with me and we can give you the fourth season you deserved?”

“He deserves better than you, dipstick!” Voidetrap said while decking him with a gloved Minion arm. The hit barely fazed him; he flicked her away as if she were a pesky bug.

“As I was saying,” Butch cleared his throat, “don’t you want to see what I could’ve done for you? You’re stuck in limbo. Why, after Phantom Planet, you would’ve—”

There it was again: Phantom Planet. Those two words set off a buzzing pain in Danny’s head. He gripped at his hair, crying out when the pain intensified.

“Ah, I see. You’re just now starting to remember. These so-called _fans _have brainwashed you to the point that you’ve forgotten everything.”

Had they? Had he—was he supposed to—

“You’ve got to fight it, Danny!” Tali urged him. “Birch Tree will do anything to manipulate you!”

“And these ghosts will do anything to keep you broken,” Butch sneered while grappling with What-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me, who was wearing short shorts with _Enemy of the State _plastered across the butt. “You should see the angst they’ve written about you! Dissections. Pain. Your family abandoning you. Why would you listen to _them?”_

“Because we _care _about him!” What-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me said. “He’s just a tool to you so you can make even more clickbait videos and pretend you’re still relevant!”

Butch snarled and finally shook her off; she went tumbling into the abyss, but another ghost took her place.

“The saturation on all of your art is way too bright!” Luma said, decking him over the head with their pillow.

“That… that would explain a lot.” Danny shook off his uncertainties. Whatever kind of ghost Butch was, he didn’t deserve control over Danny’s life. “You may have started my story, but I’m going to finish it!”

His legs morphed into his ghostly tail as he flew forward, ramming into Butch with his shoulder. The breath knocked from his chest, Butch tumbled back—but not before Dots (in a full-body suit covered in Dannos) and Bibliophileap (in an outfit too terrible to be described) could grab hold of the Reality Gauntlet.

“_Pull!” _Dots cried, and the two ghosts heaved for all they were worth. Though they were still tumbling along with Butch, they managed to right themselves and exert all the energy they had left. The Reality Gauntlet finally dislodged from his hand with a sharp _pop._

“NO!” Butch cried. “This is _my _show! _Mine! I _created your childhood!”

“Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.” Vic shrugged.

“Either way, we decide where we go from here.” Tali smirked as Bibliophileap and Dots brought back the gauntlet. “As winner of the honorable mention round, Five-Rivers should get to do the honors.”

“Back to the Shadow Realm for you.” Verbally-Situational-Irony flashed her Yu-Gi-Oh cards as Five-Rivers put on the gauntlet, having to slip it under her bedsheet covering first.

“You are the weakest link,” Five-Rivers said. “Goodbye.”

She snapped.

“No, wait! I don’t want to go—just think of all the YouTube videos we could’ve made together! You could’ve been buff instead of a twiggly little twink like these idiots make you!” His body began to crumble to dust. “Daniel! Wait! I don’t want to—”

“Oh, and Birch?” Tali cut him off with a grin. “It’s ‘yo.’ Not ‘young.’”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Was his last cry before his form completely dissolved, scattered to the ends of the ghost zone by a gentle wind.

Lexx stopped beatboxing in order to cheer, and soon that cheer was taken up by all the ghosts as they returned to the site of the now-nonexistent arena.

“Wow,” Sam said as she and Tucker floated towards Danny.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he laughed. “That was weird.”

“Does your head still hurt?” She asked.

“Nah. I think I’ll be fine, as long as no one tries to tell me what a Phantom Planet is.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” Tali assured him, then called to the rest of the ghosts. “Alright, guys! Stand clear!”

There was a confused mutter before Vic took the megaphone to explain. “We’re bringing back the stadium, so unless you want to get crushed, get your butts out of the way!”

After being told twice, the crowd finally cleared. Five-Rivers, still wielding the Reality Gauntlet, waved her arm. As it passed over the space where the stadium once was, the architecture rebuilt itself out of nothing. The ghosts who’d been yeeted off by Butch reappeared as well, blinking in disorientation.

Tali sniffed, wiping her eyes. “It’s beautiful. Phight Club, I’ll never let you get destroyed by a crazy ghost with a superiority complex ever again.”

The crowd cheered, flooding back into the stadium. All except for Tali, Danny, Sam, and Tucker.

“So, uh… is he really gone?” Danny had to ask. He’d thought the Reality Gauntlet was destroyed before, and it had come back. What was to say Butch couldn’t too?

Tali sighed. “I’m not sure a ghost like that can ever _truly _be gone. But if he comes back, we’ll yeet him into the nether realm.”

“Fair enough. But about the Reality Gauntlet…”

“We’ll take good care of it,” Tali said with a knowing smile, the kind that let Danny know it wasn’t up for discussion. “If Birch Tree _does _come back, we’ll need a way to defend ourselves.”

“No way,” Sam said. “No one should have that kind of power.”

Tali raised her eyebrows. “What are you going to do, take it from us?”

She started a retort, then bit her lip. Tali nodded as if that settled that.

“Oh! There’s one thing I almost forgot!”

She sounded her kazoo to the tune of the Danny Phantom theme song.

“Birch Tree Fartman is unable to battle! Five-Rivers—and the collective Phandom Phight Club—wins!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Danny flying up to the Fray picture by @lumanae - fun fact, I'd completely forgotten about that, and when I was editing this in my bio class I saw it and almost cackled


	5. Round 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess i should finish crossposting this huh

“Can I get a waffle?” A gruff voice was saying when Danny pushed open the door (he swore he heard someone make a _ding _noise at that). “Can I _please _get a waffle?”

Danny thought he recognized that voice, but was quickly distracted by the ghost getting thrown across the room. Was that one of the cooks? She crashed into one of the fidget spinner tables and bent the pole supporting it, leaving it spinning sadly askew.

“_GUYS!” _Tali flew in, shouting and green in the face, which was like the equivalent of being red in the face, but for ghosts. “_What _did I tell you about fighting inside the Denny’s?”

Lexosaurus—the ghost who’d yeeted the cook—grinned sheepishly.

“You said to take it out back,” the cook muttered, rubbing her head before picking up her chef hat and shoving it over her ghostly hair. The hat had a Yu-Gi-Oh card sticking out of it that said “D-o-t-s.” Was that supposed to be some kind of nametag?

“That’s right!” A different ghost said—Ghostgothgeek, her bedazzled clipboard said, though she no longer looked like Shrek. “Now, we’re going to have a full house for this round, so I want this Denny’s looking ship-shape by the time the Phight starts! And someone get that man a waffle!”

Finally Danny saw the ghost Ghostgothgeek was pointing to.

“_Skulker?” _He asked. His robotic suit hardly stood out among all the weird ghosts here, but still, Danny should have noticed him earlier.

“Oh look, it’s the whelp. What, you can’t leave me alone in the ghost zone either now?”

“I—what? No, I’m not here for you,” Danny said quickly. “You’re not here to hunt me?”

“Not today. Today I just want my waffle and to watch some ghosts beat the crap out of each other.” He slapped a few metal bits on the counter, and Ectolights swept them into the cash register before passing the order back to the kitchen.

“Huh. I guess I just thought _you _liked to be the one doing the beating,” Danny said.

“Hah! That’s true, whelp, but watching the sport can be nearly as entertaining. Now scram, unless you want me to claim your pelt anyway.”

Danny raised his hands with a grin before flying out of the Denny’s. True to Ghostgothgeek’s word, the stadium out back was packed. Good thing he had a reserved seat.

“No Sam or Tucker today?” Tali asked, joining him a few moments later.

“Nah. After last time, well… I didn’t want to risk them getting hurt,” he admitted. He hadn’t actually told them that the fourth round started tonight, though he expected they’d be disappointed when they found out he’d gone without them. Tucker would at least; he wasn’t sure how much Sam had enjoyed the previous phights. She might call him an idiot for bothering to come back himself. But hey, he’d been here since the beginning; he wasn’t about to miss the rest of it now.

“Fair enough,” Tali shrugged. “We’re trying to amp up security. Maybe they can come back for the final, at least.”

Danny nodded as she picked up her mic—the sound system had been restored along with everything else in the stadium after last round’s encounter with Birch Tree. Which reminded him; these ghosts still had the Reality Gauntlet. What had they done with it? He still couldn’t help feeling it would be safer destroyed. Or anywhere other than here, honestly.

“Alright! Phriends, Phoes, who’s ready for some _IMMORTAL KOMBAT!”_

While the crowd went wild, Danny winced.

“Do you really have to pronounce it with a ‘Ph’ every time?”

“What, too much? Eh, you’re probably right.” She shrugged.

Then someone clanged a pair of cymbals, and the first phighters stepped into the ring.

XXX

**MATCH 1**

“WHO’S READY TO YEET THIS WHEAT???” Lexx said upon entering the ring.

“Only if you’re ready to die this rye!” Her challenger, Artistically-Gay, said.

“What does that even mean?” Danny asked, but Tali just shrugged.

The crowd took up the conflicting chants of _YEET THE WHEAT and DIE THE RYE, _which only calmed when Tali tapped the mic.

“Alright, alright! We’ll find out who’s going to bag these bagels in three, two, one… PHIGHT!”

While the two phighters circled each other, Danny remembered something.

“Hey, isn’t that the guy who summoned Birch Tree?” He asked, a little worried. Surely he wouldn’t do something like that again, right?

“Yeah, but don’t worry. He apologized and said Phantom Planet’s not canon, so we’re all good.”

“...Okay, I guess,” Danny said, not sure how else to respond. By this point he at least knew not to ask what Phantom Planet was.

Meanwhile in the ring, Lexx and Artistically-Gay were exchanging blows with their two signature weapons, the Danno on a Stick™ and the Ghostbusters Cross™. Each time the weapons collided, a burst of light rippled across the ring.

“So,” Lexx bantered as they fought, “I hear you’re the punk who said Phantom Planet was canon.”

“So what if I did?” Artistically-Gay replied, nicking Lexx’s arm with the cross. She didn’t even wince; she was too aghast by the statement.

“So much for apologizing,” Danny said.

“Alright. This calls for desperate measures,” Lexx said somberly, before summoning a giant DJ’s table in a flash of glitched electricity. Before Artistically-Gay could react, Lexx was spinning the records and beatboxing a familiar song.

_“Phantom Planet’s not canon, F you!” _Erupted from the subwoofers in Lexx’s table before the words were lost in an unholy blend of dubstep and… kazoo noises? Anyway, the soundwaves were strong enough to blow Artistically-Gay back into the barrier around the ring.

“Nngh… okay, I guess I asked for that one…” He moaned before sliding back to the ground.

Tali blew her kazoo. “Artistically-Gay is unable to battle! Lexosaurus wins!”

_Disclaimer: I mean no offense to people who call Phantom Planet, or to Artistically-Gay, who probably doesn’t even hold these opinions. It was just for fun in the story._

**MATCH 2**

“Probably a good thing Tucker and Sam aren’t here for this one,” Danny said as the next two phighters entered the ring: Reallydumbdannyphantomaus and Whosvladagain.

“Yeeeeah, probably not,” Tali replied, remembering Sam’s reaction to Bug last time. Imagine if Sam, a human, had actually ended up in the ring with two ghosts. That would have been a nightmare. The Denny’s insurance probably wouldn’t cover taking her to a ghost zone hospital.

“Wait a second,” she said, noticing someone else standing suspiciously close to the ring. “Who’s that?”

“Huh?” Danny asked, following her pointing finger down to the ghost, who was wearing blue-and-red 3D glasses—who even owned those anymore?—and munching popcorn excitedly.

“It’s the ghost who gave us the first real money this Denny’s has ever made. Bespeckledbauble, I think their name was. Anyway, they’re still way too close to the ring. Where’s the security team?”

At that moment Vic, the head of security, flew up to the VIP box.

“We tried to stop them,” she explained, seeing the look on Tali’s face and anticipating her question. “They said they wanted to watch Bug get their butt kicked up close. Unluckyalis tried to yeet them back into the bleachers, but they seemed to have some kind of forcefield of their own.”

“Hmm.” Tali’s eyebrows scrunched as she stared down at the ring, where Bug and Whosvladagain were waiting for her singal to begin the match. “Well, if they’ve got a forcefield, I guess they’ll be fine. If they get hurt though, our insurance doesn’t cover it.”

Vic nodded and flew back to rejoin the security team, and Tali began the match.

“Match Two: Reallydumbdannyphantomaus vs. Whosvladagain! PHIGHT!”

“GET REKT BUG!” Bespeckledbauble shouted through a mouthful of popcorn. The shout distracted Bug for a second, letting Whosvladagain get in a hit with her nun-nunchucks. Bug stumbled back, leaning on her PowerPoint presentation staff.

“MAGGIE, COULD YOU SHUT UP FOR LIKE _FIVE MINUTES?” _Bug yelled before getting smacked in the face with the nuns.

“I take it back, maybe Sam and Tuck should’ve come to this one.” Danny laughed.

“Ugh. I’m gonna have to get serious if I want to win this,” Bug muttered, splitting into three duplicates. One copy flew to where Maggie was watching and repeatedly bonked them over the head with their staff, somehow getting through both barriers. Tali winced.

“Yep, I’m having Bug pay for damages if that one sues.”

Meanwhile, the other two duplicates flanked Whosvladagain. She kept them at bay with her spinning nuns, who began chanting in an ominous backdrop to the battle.

“Yeah, yeah, I can sing too,” one of the Bugs said through a frown. Then with two well-timed strikes, they knocked the nunchucks from Whosvladagain’s palms. One last swing at her feet sent her to the ground.

“Sorry, girls. You did me proud,” she said to her nunchucks as their chanting slowly faded.

Tali sounded her kazoo. “Whosvladagain is unable to battle! Reallydumbdannyphantomaus wins!”

**MATCH 3**

After the arena repair crew checked and double-checked the barrier—which was somehow completely intact, despite Bug shoving their staff through it—the next match could finally begin.

“Popcorn?” Aster asked. Apparently they were serving more than just Cheez-Its this time.

“Thanks.” Danny smiled as they poured the snack into a paper cup with a picture of Rick Astley’s face on it. They offered some to Tali too, but she shook her head.

“I’d like to, but can’t risk choking while announcing the next match. Speaking of! Up next we have Match Three: Punk “Audi” halfghosts versus Planetgalactica!”

Audi heelyed into the ring, spinning on their heel with a flourish and striking a pose. Planetgalactica yawned as she trailed in after them, holding her pillow loosely under her arm.

“PHIGHT!”

Audi wheeled towards Planetgalactica as quickly as if their heelys had rockets on them. Sparks flew as they sped across the pavement. Danny was sure Planetgalactica, standing bleary-eyed and motionless, was done for. But at the last second, she stepped to the side. Audi cursed, careening towards the barrier, but managed to correct and stop just in time. They glared before going in for another attack.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Planetgalactica yawned. “I’m going to fall asleep at this point.”

“The only sleep you’ll need is the eternal kind,” Audi snarked back. But as they raised their fist for a heely-powered punch, Planetgalactica blocked with her pillow—or tried to. The pillow couldn’t handle the force of the punch and exploded on impact, blasting feathers directly into Audi’s face.

Danny winced. “Dang, that backfired.”

Audi scrambled to clear their eyes of the feathers, but Planetgalactica was faster. She aimed a kick at Audi’s stomach, and slightly unsteady on their wheeled shoes, they slipped. The pile of feathers broke their fall, but wasn’t enough to save them from losing the match.

Tali sounded her kazoo—quietly, because Planetgalactica’s eyelids were already drooping again.

“Punkhalfghosts is unable to battle! Planetgalactica wins!”

“Yay,” she punched the air weakly, then began to snore where she stood.

**MATCH 4**

After the feathers (and Planetgalactica herself) were removed from the ring by Grimgrinningghoul and the rest of the cleanup team, the last match of the evening was set to start.

“The last one? Already?” Danny asked. He guessed it made sense; there were only two more rounds after this. Most of the phighters had been eliminated already, so there wouldn’t be as many matches. On the plus side, he’d get home in time to get a full five hours of sleep. On the minus side, he’d actually enjoyed hanging out with the ghosts in a way that didn’t involve him getting beat up.

He glanced over to Skulker, who was sitting near the front—and realized he’d brought Ember and Technus with him, too. Ember flipped him off when she noticed him staring. Technus just waved cheerily.

“O-kaaaaay…” Maybe it was nice that they weren’t trying to kill him—well, finish killing him—but it was also just weird.

But Tali picked up the mic, stopping him from pondering that further.

“Alright frootloops, get ready for a match that’s sure to be interesting! It’s the Danno-wielding Heyheyitsstillgay (AKA Anri) vs. the top-class Navy Seal, Monocheshaa! PHIGHT!”

Monocheshaa pointed his finger gun, using his other hand to stabilize it. This was going to be a big one, then.

“Nice try, Mono—AGH!” Anri gasped and staggered back as their shoulder took the invisible blow. They covered the wound with their other hand, but Danny didn’t know why—no ectoplasm was leaking out of it. In fact, the only thing coming from the wound was…

“Oh no,” he breathed.

Anri grinned, then let out a bone-chilling laugh. “You think your lousy finger guns can defeat me? Look at me, Monocheshaa. I haven’t had a single ectoplasmic organ in this body since 2006. The only thing powering this form… is…”

They removed their hand again, releasing a trickle of glitched pixels. Monocheshaa cursed.

“Bad meme edits.”

With that pronouncement, the memes flooded from Anri’s shoulder. New memes, old memes, cursed memes—some memes Danny couldn’t even recognize. Thanos snap memes. “Had to do it to ‘em” memes. Even as far back as Grumpy Cat memes.

Monocheshaa kept his cool, trying his best to shoot the memes down as quickly as they appeared, but it quickly became futile. Bad Luck Brian and Galaxy Brain and Same Hat all combined to overpower him.

“Wow.” Danny blinked. “That was…”

“Frickin’ _AMAZING_,” Tali finished for him. He’d been about to say “mildly terrifying,” but sure, amazing worked too.

Anri sucked her memes back into her flesh prison before bowing to the applauding crowd.

Tali dooted her kazoo. “Monocheshaa is unable to battle! Heyheyitsstillgay wins!”

XXX

Danny was about to sneak away before Skulker, Technus, and Ember could find him, but Tali caught him by the shoulder.

“Wait, I almost forgot. The other mods and I are putting on a special match tomorrow night, would you want to come watch?” She asked. Come to think of it, Danny had never seen Tali fight, even when Birch Tree Fartman had been attacking. Weird, now that he thought about it.

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, intrigued. “But right now I better go before—”

“Hey, dipstick!” Ember called.

“Oh great.” He groaned. The trio flew up to him, all looking too mischevious for their own good.

“Don’t worry, we’re not here to threaten to take over your world this time,” Technus said.

“We just thought we’d watch you squirm for a bit.” Ember smirked. “But hey, if you ever want a go in the ring, I’d _love _to kick your butt for an audience!”

“Oh yeah? Says the one who’s gotten _their _butt kicked every time they try,” he couldn’t help retorting.

“Hey, save it for the next tournament,” Tali said, frowning at the lot of them. “If you’re looking for unauthorized phights, the parking lot’s the place for that. Otherwise it’s gonna be a while before we host sign-ups again.”

“Well I for one look forward to it.” Skulker grinned.

“See ya on the other side, ghostchild!” Technus laughed. Ember flipped him off one last time before the trio flew away.

Danny shook his head. There must be something in the ectoplasm in this part of the ghost zone. 

But as long as everyone kept the strange truce here, he’d roll with it.


	6. Mod Round

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This round was written entirely by Bug (dumbdpaus)! Give them some love!

“Hey there, my good bitch,” Bug said, popping back up in the VIP box next to Danny. “No Sam and Tucker?”

“You sound almost disappointed,” Danny said.

“Of course I am! I love those guys.” Bug turned back to the ring with a frown. “Plus, this is the mod phight. They deserve all the love, my dude.”

Danny almost asked what they meant by mod, but he’d learned that asking a question meant you then had to live with the answer, so he closed his mouth and looked down at where Tali, Vic, and Cat were facing off. Tali had her kazoo, still, while Cat had a ugly looking paper frog and Vic held… nothing, apparently.

“All right binches! Go get this bread!” Bug hit the gong and the match began.

Tali started things off with a flurry of kazoo noises.

“Is that,” Danny said, “a Kingdom Hearts song?”

“Probably,” Bug said with a shrug.

In the ring, the sound of the kazoo was pulsing through the ground, making for unsteady footing. Cat held up their frog and screamed, “The power of Le Pepe compels you!” and the shaking beneath their feet, at least, stopped.

“Oh,” Vic said, staring at her fingernails, “I’m _so happy_ this is happening now. Really, Tali, you should do it more.”

“Okay!” Tali said, and she played her kazoo even harder. Vic toppled out of the arena.

“Oof,” Bug said, “looks like her sarcasm backfired.”

Vic called up from the ground. “Wow, it is _so nice_ down here. I love it.”

“That… seems more passive-aggressive than sarcastic,” Danny said.

“Eh,” Bug said, “it’s a thin line.”

Now the only two in the ring, Cat and Tali circled each other. Cat feinted with their Pepe, then out of nowhere began firing mounds of trash from their hands.

“I’M A TRASH COMMUNIST,” they yelled, “EAT MY TRASH.”

“Now _this_ is what I came to see,” Bug said, on the edge of their seat.

“It is?” Danny said.

Tali waited as the trash began to fall around her, shaking her head. “You are like a little baby,” she said. “Watch this.”

A shower head appeared and water cascaded down. Tali began belting out _Simple and Clean_, which forced all the trash back and slammed into Cat with impressive force.

“No!” Cat screeched. “The power of Pepe compels you!”

It was to no avail. They were toppled out of the ring, and Tali stood alone.

“That’s a wrap,” Bug said. “Tali wins! Give it up for the mods, binches!”


	7. Round 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was probably my favorite one haha. wes was a blast

Prelude

This was, by far, the worst day of Wes Weston’s life.

It had started out fine. A regular day of school—though “regular” at this point meant trying to restrain himself from decking Danny’s stupid, smug face. He’d nearly given up on exposing the half-ghost’s secret, but it was just—just so— _ infuriating,  _ being mocked mercilessly while Danny got away with everything.

Anyway, there’d been a ghost attack, Danny had skipped class to fight it, Wes had tried to get video evidence, his camera had been sucked up into Technus 4.0’s mechanical armor… and so on. He’d thought that would be the end of today’s suckage.

But no. It got better.

“Let me  _ go!”  _ He swung another punch at the ghost, but unsurprisingly, it was completely ineffective. For one, because he was trying to punch a creature made completely of ectoplasm, and for two, because he’d completely missed. Aiming was difficult considering he was being dragged along by his leg.

“You sure you want that?” The ghost called down to him. He gulped and looked down at the swirling void of what he assumed was the ghost zone below.

“...Okay, maybe not.”

“That’s what I thought.” Though he couldn’t see her face from this angle, he could hear the smirk in her voice.

“Can you at least tell me where you’re taking me to?” He grumbled.

He expected some kind of cryptic answer, or else an insult. Maybe even some kind of threat. Probably a threat actually, the ghosts that attacked Amity usually liked those.

“Denny’s.”

He blinked, sure that he’d misheard.

“What was that?”

“Denny’s.” She contorted her ectoplasmic form to bend and grin at him. It was then that he caught a glimpse of her nametag, which said  _ Mod Vic.  _ What kind of name was that?

“Denny’s,” he deadpanned, sure that he was being pranked. Maybe Danny had set this whole thing up. As if today hadn’t been fantastic enough. “Next you’re going to tell me you just want to serve me a Grand Slam on the house.”

“We can make that happen, actually. But I’d recommend the dumplings or pies, the pancakes can be a little… iffy.”

“Right,” Wes drawled. “Look, that sounds great and all, but I already ate dinner. Can we please skip this whole plot and get to the part where I go home?”

“Soon enough,” Vic said cryptically.

“But I have school tomorrow! I can’t be out, my dad will kill me, and my grades are already—!”

“Can we skip to the part where you shut up?” Vic interrupted with a glowing-eyed glare. Wes swallowed. Annoying her probably wasn’t the best way to get what he wanted. But what else could he do? He had no way out of here on his own; he wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten here in the first place. One second he’d been doing Algebra on his bed, and the next he’d woken up upside down, flying through the ghost zone. He didn’t remember passing out, but his head  _ did  _ hurt. Though that could’ve just been from the blood rushing to it.

“Finally,” Vic muttered. “Your friend can deal with you from here.”

“Huh? Where are—AGH!”

He screamed as Vic flung him into the air, where he spun a couple times before landing in the arms of—

“ _ Danny?”  _ Wes’s vision was still spinning, but he’d recognize that stupid white hair anywhere.

“Wes? What the heck are you doing here?” Danny frowned as if this whole thing  _ wasn’t  _ his fault. Which Wes was sure it was. Even if the other boy looked as confused as he was.

“Put me down,  _ Fenton.”  _ Wes scowled. He didn’t want to be carried bridal-style by anyone, much less the ghost who’d made his life a living hell.

Danny smirked. “Your wish is my command, Wes.”

And then he dropped him.

XXX

“That was  _ not funny,”  _ Wes said five minutes later, when he and Danny sat across from each other at a fidget-spinner shaped table, eating a plate of dumplings.

“Oh come on, you know it was.” Danny grinned and pointed a dumpling at Wes’s head. “Look, now your hair even looks like mine.”

Wes held up a spoon and was mortified to find that he was right – the fall had disheveled his hair to the point that he looked  _ even more  _ like the ghost boy.

“I really hate you, you know that?”

Danny shrugged. “You can’t win ‘em all.”

The worst part about Danny was just how much he  _ didn’t care.  _ Like Wes was a complete joke to him. Just like he was to everyone else.

He was even a joke to the  _ ghosts  _ here! Every time he looked up, it seemed one of them was watching him. At first he’d thought it was because he was the only human here. Then he’d seen a trailer for  _ Wes Weston: The Movie  _ playing from a projector on the wall. He knew Danny had a TV show, but  _ he  _ wasn’t supposed to be any part of it. He wasn’t even canon!

“Look, can you just tell me why they dragged me here?” He finally swallowed his pride and asked Danny.

Danny shrugged again, stuffing another dumpling into his mouth. “Prob’ly a sp’shal guest, or s’mthing.”

“Nice,” Wes deadpanned, mostly at Danny’s lack of manners. “A special guest to  _ what?” _

From somewhere outside, Africa by Toto began blaring. But where was it coming from? Last he’d checked, the outside of the Denny’s had been deserted, save for a crumbling parking lot hovering in pieces over the green void.

Danny grinned. Wes knew from experience that that was a very, very bad sign.

“Don’t worry. You’re about to find out.”

XXX

**MATCH 1**

“Hey, Wes! You made it!” A ghost whose nametag read  _ Mod Tali  _ said. Wes didn’t know what the ‘Mod’ meant, but if this ghost was anything like Mod Vic, he didn’t want anything to do with her. Of course, Danny was steering him to the seat right next to her.

“Not by choice,” he mumbled and crossed his arms.

“Hey, it’s not so bad. Only two matches tonight,” Tali said cheerily. It was the kind of voice that made Wes want to punch her in the face, but he wasn’t quite  _ that  _ stupid. “You’ll be back home faster than you can say  _ yeet.” _

“Yeet. There. Can I go home now?”

Danny burst out laughing, though Wes  _ really  _ didn’t see what was so funny.

“Nice try, kid. But I guess I’ll do you a solid and get this match started, eh?” She picked up a microphone, cutting off the rendition of Africa that had still been blasting over the speakers.

“Alright pholks, the first match of the semifinals! Introducing our favorite sleepy contender: Planetgalactica!”

Planetgalactica yawned and waved her pillow as she flew into the ring. When the crowd began to cheer for her, she shushed them with a finger over her mouth.

“And her opponent, the fleshy container of memes themselves: Heyheyitsstillgay!”

Wes grimaced at that description, but the ghost who flew out looked relatively normal. There was a pretty large bandaid on her shoulder though, which looked like it had Danny’s face on it, of all things.

“I thought it was Bug and Lexx who were fighting in the first match?” Danny asked with a frown.

“Eh, it’s kind of fun to watch them squirm while they wait.” Tali shrugged. “PHIGHT!”

“Can’t we like, do this later?” Planetgalactica asked. “I was watching the moon last night… it was really pretty but I didn’t get a lot of—” she yawned loudly, “—sleep…”

“I no longer require sleep,” Anri said smugly. “The power of memes and PowerPoint slides sustain me.”

“Huh, okay,” Planetgalactica said. Wes couldn’t tell if she was blanking from confusion, or if she was just that tired. “Let’s get this over with then, I guess.”

With surprising speed for someone who looked like they were about to fall unconscious— _ could  _ ghosts fall unconscious?—Planetgalactica flew forward. She wound up, twisting her body like a corkscrew to put maximum power behind her pillow strike.

Anri dodged, letting the swing’s momentum carry Planetgalactica spinning into the barrier.

“Really? You guys brought me here to watch some lame pillowfight?” Wes asked, gesturing a hand at the ring. “Look at them! They’re not even really fighting! I thought you said this was some kind of underground ghostfighting tournament, but all I see is a bunch of… lame…”

His voice trailed off as something in the ring caught his eye. Planetgalactica was recovering from her collision with the wall, but more importantly, Anri was  _ glowing.  _ That was normal for ghosts, but this eerie red glow surrounding their face gave him a bad feeling.

“This’ll put you to sleep,” Anri said. Then they unhinged their jaw and released what Wes could only assume was the unholy fires of hell.

A bright beam of red energy shot from Anri’s mouth, blasting Planetgalactica back into the translucent barrier.

“Was… was that an ectoblast?” Wes asked. There was a physical sense of fear that accompanied the energy beam, something he’d never quite felt from a regular ghost attack before.

“Not quite,” Danny answered. “I think that was actually the full concentrated power of dank memes.”

Wes raised his eyebrows and looked at Tali, who was nodding as if Danny was actually serious.

“Oh  _ come on,”  _ he scoffed. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that.”

“Frankly I don’t care if you believe anything. You’re just here for your entertainment value,” Tali said before blowing her kazoo to the tune of  _ Never Gonna Give You Up. _

“Planetgalactica is unable to battle! Heyheyitsstillgay wins!”

**MATCH 2**

A hush fell over the arena as the next two ghosts entered the ring. The lights dimmed, leaving the stadium cloaked in the ghost zone’s omnipresent green glow.

“What’s going on?” Wes demanded. This wasn’t the part where they threw him into the ring and killed him in some kind of ritual sacrifice, was it? That would  _ really  _ ruin his day.

“Shhh,” Mod Tali hissed. “This is a phight we’ve all been waiting for. Don’t ruin the suspense.”

“I don’t give a crap about your ‘suspense,’” he said, making air quotes. “I just want to go  _ home.” _

Tali sighed heavily. “You are  _ such  _ a killjoy. Y’know, I’m almost starting to regret having you kidnapped.”

“ _ Almost!?” _

“Yeah, I probably could’ve told you this was a bad idea,” Danny whispered. “Wes tends to ruin just about anything he comes in contact with. He’s almost as bad as Johnny’s Shadow.”

“ _ Hey!” _

“Well, whatever,” Tali said. “Guess we’ll just get on with it then.” She picked up the mic.

“Our first phighter, the dumpster fire who’s ready to dab her way to victory: Lexosaurus!”

The crowd clapped and shouted as Lexx threw her dark sunglasses to the ground, crunching them under her boot. Probably for some kind of dramatic effect, but all Wes could think about was how much of a waste it was.

“And her opponent, the omnipresent wielder of PowerPoints, bad AUs, and sass: Reallydumbdannyphantomaus!”

Bug threw off their purple observant’s cloak, revealing the silver staff strapped to their back. “You’re going down, binch.”

“We’ll see about that.” Lexx smirked back.

“PHIGHT!”

Right as the announcement sounded through the ring, Bug split into three and went flying towards Lexx. She was ready for them, though. She swung her Danno on a stick at each duplicate in turn. They went crashing into the barrier with identical groans.

Wes dug his fingernails into the armrests of his seat. These ghosts might still be using stupid attacks, but their auras were full of power. He didn’t want to know how violent they would be if they happened to break through the barrier.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” the Bugs said, peeling themselves off the translucent walls.

“Oh, I will,” Lexx vowed. Then she summoned her signature spin table, and the speakers began blaring her music, which sounded oddly like a dubstepped saxophone. The Bugs gritted their teeth against the soundwaves, unable to fly in close enough to strike with their projector-screen staffs.

“I’ve been memeing since before you went ghost, Bug,” Lexx said. “How can you possibly hope to defeat me?”

“It’s true that you’re one of the most ancient ghosts, Lexx,” Bug growled out against the soundwaves, still trying to fly in closer. “The Carnivorous Outskirts trained you to survive in a harsh world of vore and dank memes. But I still have one thing you don’t.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

The Bug who was speaking smirked. “I pay attention.”

While they’d been distracting Lexx with the monologue, one of their duplicates had skirted the top of the domed barrier and silently hovered down behind Lexx’s spin table. They tapped Lexx’s shoulder, and she jumped a foot.

“What the–!”

“LKSAJ;FOID;AFN;LDKS’NLfsoieoi;woypporwhOI;E;LKJ;lasdjf;sda;fjsdoi;dJOAOIFSPUOFJIOASD;NSDF!!!!!!!1111!!!!” The Bug screamed, shattering the records on the spin table, Lexx’s eardrums, and even the barrier around the ring. While Lexx was recoiling from the point-blank blow, Bug’s duplicates merged and swung their staff, yeeting Lexx out of the ring.

“YEEEEEEEeeeeeeeet!” Lexx called as she disappeared into the void outside the stadium. A twinkle of light was the last sign of her presence.

For a moment everything was silent. Then the crowd went absolutely  _ nuts.  _ People were shouting, chanting, throwing Cheez-Its, laughing, standing and applauding. Even Tali had been reduced to hysterical laughter, to the point that she couldn’t yet blow her kazoo.

“Wow,” Danny said through a cackle of his own. “I didn’t think that one would lose. Man, Sam and Tuck are gonna be mad Bug made it to the finals.”

“Wes? Weston, you alright there?” Tali asked when she finally got ahold of herself.

“I—I’m— _ what the heck just happened?” _

“The Phandom Phight Club just happened, babey.” Tali grinned. “You still think we’re lame?”

“...No comment,” he muttered, wishing he’d had his camera. This stuff was just too impossible to make up.

Finally realizing she needed to call the match before the crowd got too wild, Tali blew her kazoo.

“Lexosaurus is unable to battle! Reallydumbdannyphantomaus wins!”

XXX

Much to Wes’s eternal embarrassment, the ghosts left Danny to take him home. Literally. He was currently being carried bridal-style in his classmate’s arms.

“I really, really hate you,” he muttered.

“Duly noted.” Danny sighed. “And here I thought Valerie was the one with the biggest grudge.”

“What’s Valerie got to do with anything?” Wes frowned.

“Nevermind. Point is, can’t you just let this go? I wouldn’t make life so annoying for you if you’d just leave me alone.”

“Yeah, like you just  _ left me alone  _ today. You let me get  _ kidnapped!” _

“Hey, I had nothing to do with this. Promise. Not that I could’ve stopped them either way, but it wasn’t my idea.”

The fact that any ghosts could be interested in him was baffling, but Danny seemed to be telling the truth. He was a horrible liar, which only made it that much more annoying that everyone believed him and not Wes.

“Fine.” Wes sighed. “You want a truce, or something like that? You’re gonna have to prove you deserve it.”

“Apart from saving the town on a bi-weekly basis?” Danny raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have time to do your homework or whatever else you’d try to blackmail me into. I’m too tired.”

“You’re not the only one,” Wes grumbled. And he’d stay tired until everyone stopped giving him crap about being Phantom. Which would only happen if he exposed Danny. 

Still… did the other kid really deserve that? This had been the first time Wes had ever hung out with him without their feud really interfering. All these ghosts knew his secret, so there had been nothing to expose. And well… aside from dropping him for a few seconds, Danny had been fairly pleasant. Nothing like the absolute nightmare this could have been. Could they eventually put their past behind them?

“...I’ll think about it,” Wes decided.


	8. Phinal Round

The Denny’s was absolutely _packed. _ The last time Danny had seen so many ghosts in one place was when Pariah Dark invaded, which automatically gave him an uneasy feeling despite the fact that he was in the ghost zone. He couldn’t complain about them congrating in their own home.

“Geez, you think they’ll run out of pancakes?” Tucker asked, staying close by Danny’s side.

“Tucker, I think pancakes are the least of our worries right now,” Sam said while pointing through the crowd to a familiar cape-wearing, pointy-haired, Packers-obsessed ghost.

“_Vlad?” _Danny hissed under his breath, ducking under a fidget-spinner-shaped table. The ghost sitting there peeked down, her blue hair flickering as a group of tiny blob ghosts swam in and out of it. Danny was afraid she would call them out, or ask them to move or something, but she just smiled awkwardly before going back to eating her cheesecake.

“Okay, I get all the other ghosts, but what’s Vlad doing here?” Tucker asked.

“My money’s on him bribing the Denny’s workers into capturing you for him,” Sam whispered conspiratorially.

“That can’t be right.” Danny frowned. “Tali said they don’t usually get paid here.”

“Which makes them even more likely to accept bribes, right?” Tucker said.

“This whole place has been fishy from the start, Danny,” Sam added.

“Okay, but come on. Do you really think Vlad would sponsor a _meme _tournament? He’s, like, fifty. I bet he doesn’t even know what a meme _is.” _

Tucker shrugged. “Maybe he thought it would connect him to the hip youth of today, who knows.”

“Look, we still don’t have any evidence other than that he’s here right now. For all we know, he could be about to get kicked out.”

Sam peeked out from behind the table to where Vlad was ordering food at the counter. He slapped down a stack of money that made Ectolight’s eyes widen to the size of plates.

“Yeah, somehow that doesn’t seem likely,” Sam replied.

As they were in the middle of deciding what to do about Vlad, a ghost hovered down under the table with them. They had their red hair pulled up and held a cup of coffee with the _Ghostbucks _logo on the side, despite the fact that they were in a Denny’s. 

“Hey, sorry I’m late, I just got hired here. Can I get you guys some food? Artsy’s really insisting people try his cheesecake.”

Danny blinked at the ghost, while Sam gave the ghost her best _go-away-you-don’t-belong-here _glare.

“Sorry, we’re not really here to eat right now.”

“Yes we are!” Tucker corrected. “I’ll take some of that cheesecake.”

The ghost—whose cup said _Going-Dead, _which might have been their name—scribbled down the order before flying off.

“Guess they’re so packed they’re treating people sitting on the floor as legit customers,” Danny said. “But anyway, about Vlad—”

“Ah yes, what about me, little badger?”

“GAH!” Tucker shouted in surprise when Vlad appeared, having to crouch to fit under the table with them. It was such an unusual sight to see Vlad _literally _stoop to his level that Danny had to laugh.

“I was just saying I thought Denny’s didn’t serve frootloops,” he snarked.

“Ha ha, yes, back at it with the quips again. I’m sure your petty humor has impressed the fools that frequent here.” Vlad seemed to roll his eyes, but it was difficult to tell when they were flooded with red. “Now tell me child, have you heard of the ghost they call Birch Tree?”

Danny froze at that. “What about him?”

Sam discreetly elbowed him in the ribs, as if he shouldn’t have said that.

“Ah, so you _do _know. Tell me, is it true that he was vanquished here a few days ago?”

Danny didn’t know what Vlad had to do with Birch Tree Fartman, but his guess was nothing good. If that was why he was hanging around the Denny’s… Danny needed to get security on this, fast. They seemed to like him; surely they would listen to him that Vlad was bad news.

“We don’t have to tell you anything,” Sam said coldly.

“And you can’t fight me here,” Danny remembered with a smirk. “All fights have to be taken out back. In the ring. So good luck getting answers out of me that way.”

Vlad chuckled. “We’ll see about that.” He tried to stand, but knocked his head on the table on his way up. “Butter biscuits!” he cursed before flying off.

“That… was weird,” Tucker said. “You don’t think he’s after the Reality Gauntlet, do you?”

Danny smacked his forehead. He _hadn’t _thought of that, but it was the next logical conclusion. Even if Vlad didn’t know about it yet, he was sure to learn if he kept poking around.

“C’mon, we’ve gotta let security know before—” 

“Before what?” Tali asked. Tucker shouted again. Sheesh, Danny knew he was in the ghost zone, but not having his ghost sense to warn him when they snuck up on him was a pain.

“Vlad’s here,” he said as Tali settled cross-legged an inch above the floor. Probably a good idea, considering he wasn’t sure he trusted the janitorial staff here.

“Vlad? Oh yeah, we know. Got a hundred bucks out of him. Do you know how many pancakes we can buy with that?” She grinned.

“Look, forget about pancakes!” Sam grabbed the crossed straps over her coat. “He’s going to want the Reality Gauntlet!”

Tali just laughed. “It’s great that you’re so concerned, but don’t worry about it. Our weapons manager Phantasmapurple9 has it locked up tight. We’re not as stupid as we look here, y’know.”

Sam still scowled like she wanted to protest, but Danny knew better. When Tali didn’t want to discuss something, it was over. Almost like she was writing the script and wanted him to shut up so she could get onto the actual Phight or something.

Speaking of which, a loud guitar riff began playing from the stadium out back.

“Now come on, cheer up! You don’t want to miss the pre-phight show! Ember agreed to play for us, and we’ve got some other sweet surprises coming up!”

Vlad, and now Ember again? Danny might seriously come to regret his curiosity about the end of the Phight.

Still, he let Tali lead him, Sam, and Tucker out from under the table and into the stadium.

None of them heard one of Vlad’s duplicates chuckle from his hiding spot on the ceiling. 

“A weapons manager? Well, I’ll just have to pay them a little visit.”

XXX

In the middle of the ring, rather than two phighters like Danny was was used to, Ember stood on a stage that had been temporarily set up. Normally that would have been enough to make Danny nervous, but he was pretty sure that Ember couldn’t draw strength from the cheering of ghosts. If she could, she wouldn’t have any reason to come to the human world.

Even if he was worried about Ember, for once she wasn’t the center of attention. Not the only one, anyway. 

“Dude… are those ghosts dressed up like _Shrek?” _Tucker asked. Danny nodded mutely. He was pretty sure that Ghostgothgeek was the larger one leading them at the front, but it was impossible to tell for sure.

“Just when I thought things couldn’t get aaaaany weirder.” Sam shook her head, but Danny could see the laughter in her eyes.

Down below, Ember’s introductory guitar rift shifted to a more familiar tune. Then she began to sing, but not quite the words Danny expected.

_Some-BODY once told me_

_This ghost zone’s really lonely_

_I’ve got nowhere to order an Egg_

_Well they were feeling kind of glum_

_Til this Phight got up and run_

_At a Denny’s where everyone is dead_

The Shrek-ghosts kept dancing as Ember sung to the tune of “All Star.” Danny didn’t recognize all their moves, but several of them were flossing and dabbing for all they were worth. One fell over, too off-balance from doing the sprinkler to stand.

_Well, the Phights start comin’ and they don’t stop comin’_

_Fed up with rules, yeah they hit the ground postin’ _

_Never made sense not to Phight for fun_

_We yeeted Butch ‘cause we’re not that dumb_

_So much to do, so much to meme_

_So what’s wrong with eating at Denny’s?_

_You’ll never know if you don’t go_

_Now time to get on with the show_—

_Hey now, you’re a Phighter, get your dab on, go yeet_

_Hey now, see you losers, time to get rekt, get beat_

_And all the ghosts they will cheer,_

_You’re gonna be the winner at least this year!_

The crowd exploded with applause as Ember pumped her fist in the air.

“Thank you, Denny’s! You’ve been a great crowd!”

“I LOVE YOU, EMBER!” Klemper shouted from the top of the bleachers, and Ember grimaced.

“Still not being your friend, Klemper!”

“Awww…”

Tali finally took up her mic as Ember and the Shreks exited the stage. The cleanup crew began disassembling the stage in the meantime.

“Everyone give it up for Ember!” She said, as if everyone hadn’t just been cheering for her.

“YEAH, EMBER!” Tucker shouted. Sam and Danny gave him a look. “What? She’s still good!”

Sam rolled her eyes. Tali ignored them and kept going.

“Ember will be signing pancakes in the lobby after the Phight for all of her fans. But now it’s time for the main event! Give it up for our third place contenders: Lexosaurus and Planetgalactica!”

The ghosts carrying the pieces of the stage had to flee out of the way as a conglomerate of fidget spinners flew into the ring.

“What the—?” Danny started. “Oh man. That’s Lexx, isn’t it?”

Tali nodded. “She requested 360 fidget spinners to fight with.”

“Where do you even _get _that many?” Tucker asked before Sam could slap her hand over his mouth.

“Please don’t answer that. Tucker can’t be trusted with that kind of power.”

“Hey!” He objected, though it was muffled through her hand.

“Where’s Planetgalactica then?” Danny asked.

She wandered out into the ring a few moments later, holding a Ghostbucks cup and rubbing her eyes blearily.

“When did the ghost zone even get a Starbucks?” Danny wondered. Did it serve better coffee than the Denny’s?

“Alright, square up and get ready to… PHIGHT!” Tali announced.

Lexx seemed to take the “square up” comment literally; her hovering fidget spinners reconfigured into a cube that shielded her on all four sides.

“HEY! I AM THE BOX GHOST! NO OTHER GHOST MAY USE MY SQUARE SHAPE OF DOOOOM!”

Danny laughed at the Box Ghost’s outburst. Everyone else more or less ignored him as Planetgalactica lifted her pillow in a fighting stance.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said to the mass of fidget spinners, though her voice didn’t sound so certain.

“Huh,” Lexx’s voice filtered out, distorted by the interference of the spinners. “Interesting.”

Then she surged forward, directly into the pillow Planetgalactica used to block. Fidget spinners and pillow feathers went flying, but when the debris settled, both phighters were still standing.

“YEAH! YOU GO PLANETGALACTICA!” Tucker cheered.

“You’re only rooting for her because she wore that Sailor Moon costume earlier.” Sam crossed her arms.

“That, _and _because she’s the only one out of those two who doesn’t look like a monster from another dimension.”

Danny winced, a sudden headache and urge to punch someone coming on. “Please don’t say those words.”

Sam frowned in confusion. “What? Sailor Moon?”

“Monster from another dimension?”

Danny nodded, wincing again. “Second one.”

Sam and Tucker shared a look, then shrugged.

Meanwhile in the ring, both phighters were scrambling for whatever weapons they could find. Lexx still had a handful of fidget spinners; Planetgalactica was scooping more off the ground and hurling them at her. Once she realized that wasn’t working, she hurled her coffee.

“Haha, nice,” Lexx laughed as the hot liquid burned her arm. “I knew you’d put up a good fight! I’ve still got one trick left up my sleeve, though.”

From her sleeve she pulled her traditional and most powerful weapon: the Danno on a stick. 

Planetgalactica’s eyes darted back and forth in search of any kind of defense, before she suddenly turned invisible. “Whoa! I didn’t know I could do that!”

“Huh. Me either.” Lexx shrugged but didn’t look too worried. “Danno on a stick, fly swift and sure, that shitposts live, and memes endure!”

With that incantation and a gutteral “YEET!”, she hurled the Danno on a stick in the last direction she’d seen Planetgalactica. The stick began to glow and shifted course midair, spinning until it struck something with a loud _THUD. _Planetgalactica flickered back into visibility, now lying on the concrete.

“Nice time… for a nap…” she muttered before falling unconscious.

Tali blew her kazoo, though it could hardly be heard over the roar of the crowd.

“Planetgalactica is unable to battle! Lexosaurus wins Third Place in the Phandom Phight Club 2019!”

XXX

The bowels of the Denny’s were about what Vlad expected, honestly. Cold, damp, and filled with memes too dank to see the light of day. Or in this case, the pallid glow of whatever passed for day in the ghost zone. Vlad fought his way past the ghosts of dead vines—“_It’s Wednseday my dudes” _had deserved that ectoblast to the face—and finally reached a vault at the end of the tunnel, where a rather surprised-looking guard hovered.

“Uh… I don’t think you’re supposed to be down here, sir.”

“And I think the Packers should’ve gone to the superbowl this year, but here we are.” Vlad shrugged, and with a flick of his wrist, an ectoblast sent the guard thudding against the door of the vault.

“Honestly, this is _too _easy.” Vlad smiled and straightened his collar before kicking aside the unconscious guard. The vault might take some work; ghosts did know how to keep out their own kind. Phasing through wouldn’t be an option, but maybe with an ectoblast amplified with a device of his creation…

Or, the door could already be cracked. So the Denny’s employees _were _are stupid as they looked. The guard must have opened it when they’d slammed against it somehow. Terrible design, but Vlad would take it. He pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Sitting on a pillar, just _begging _to be stolen, was the fabled Reality Gauntlet.

“Birch Tree Fartman may not have wielded you properly, but I won’t make the same mistake,” he vowed as he crept towards it, carefully checking for any tripwires or hidden security measures. Focused as he was on the ground before the pillar though, he failed to look up.

A net dropped from the ceiling. 

“Butter brickle,” He barely had time to curse before an electric current coursed through him.

“Doesn’t feel so good, does it?” A ghost asked, her glowing eyes appearing out of the darkness before the rest of her.

“Who… who are _you?” _Vlad groaned, though he still managed to make it sound contemptuous.

“Name’s Vic. One of the Phight Club mods, head of security, and _really _thrilled that you just tried to rob us.”

“Not _try, _girl,” he sneered. “As soon as I get out of here—”

Vic pressed a button, and the net shocked him again.

“Don’t worry, you _will _be getting out of here.” Vic smirked. “Just maybe not in the way that you’d like.”

XXX

“What’s going on?” Danny finally asked Tali. The first match was over, all the feathers and fidget spinners had been removed from the ring, and yet there was still no sign of the next two phighters. Ember and some of the Denny’s employees had begun putting on a half-time show to pass the time, but Danny could see Tali fidgeting uncomfortably in her chair.

“Nothing,” she replied too quickly. “…Just hoping Vic’s doing alright, that’s all.”

“What’s Vic up to?” Tucker asked.

“_Nothing_,” she replied even more evasively.

When the ground started shaking, though, Danny knew it absolutely wasn’t “nothing.”

A few startled yelps came from the ground below, where the Denny’s crew and Ember were flying away from the epicenter of the quake. Thankfully they hadn’t reset the stage, so there was nothing to fall in when the center of the ring suddenly crumbled away.

“Oh, good.” Tali sighed in relief.

“Good?” Sam asked. “How in the world is the whole ring caving in _good?”_

“It means Vic did it.” She grinned. “Look.”

Upon further inspection, the way the pavement had crumbled wasn’t random – it revealed a circular pit in the middle of the arena. A pit which soon had something rising out of it.

“Oh my gosh,” Sam said, covering her mouth with her fist to hide a laugh. “Is that–“

“_Vlad?” _Tucker finished with a cackle. “They caught him in a net! A _net!”_

“Yeah, I can see, Tuck,” Danny laughed, shoving Tucker’s elbow away from his side. “Ooh, it looks like it’s an electric net too. Nice.”

Tali raised her mic. “Alright phriends—”

“Could you stop pronouncing it with a _ph?” _Sam groaned.

“Nope! Anyway, if you’ll direct your attention towards the center of the ring, you’ll see one sad frootloop who’s been caught trying to steal Denny’s property!”

The crowd booed, some even going so far as to throw popcorn, Cheez-Its, and mayo cheesecake at Vlad, who had begun cursing in even more diverse food items.

“So, as his due punishment, we’re throwing him into the ring with two of the baddest ghosts I know: our two Phinalists, Reallydumbdannyphantomaus and Heyheyitsstillgay!”

The two ghosts entered the ring as _We Will Rock You _began blasting from the speakers. Bug clapped to the beat with their four hands.

Vlad scoffed as Vic released him from the net. “You honestly believe these _imbeciles _can—”

“PHIGHT!”

Vlad was still shaky after his encounter with the electric net – the average ghost might not be able to tell, but after being shocked by at least a dozen of them, Danny knew the effects like the back of his hand. Vlad, on the other hand, wasn’t used to shaking it off so quickly.

“Hey, fruit bat!” Anri yelled at him. “I heard you like cats!”

From her overstuffed duffle bag, they pulled out a fat, fluffy orange cat with a Danno taped to its face.

“I already have a cat, thank you,” he drawled, then attempted to fly out of the ring—only to smash directly into the forcefield.

“No way out.” Bug grinned, rubbing two hands together and pulling out their PowerPoint staff with their other two.

“Have they always had four arms?” Tucker asked.

“I’m not sure,” Danny said.

“Either way, I just hope they lose.” Sam crossed her arms. “Not to Vlad, though. He needs a kick in the face more than anyone.”

“Amen to that,” Tucker agreed.

Meanwhile, Anri yeeted the cat at Vlad’s head. It yowled as its claws tangled in Vlad’s horribly impractical hair.

“Gah—get this thing off me! You’re nothing like my sweet Maddie!”

Tucker’s face puckered in disgust. “Dude, does he have a cat named after your mom?”

“Is that an _ew _or a _yikes?” _Sam asked.

“Both.” Danny grimaced. He knew he’d told Vlad to get a cat, but that wasn’t what he’d had in mind.

While Vlad was distracted by the cat, Bug flew up behind him and whacked him across the back with their staff, sending him back towards the ground. Mid-fall, he was finally able to detangle himself from the cat, but not in time to avoid hitting the pavement hard.

“Nngh… you think that’s _funny, _do you?”

Obviously the crowd did, by their cackling laughter. Bug and Anri grinned down at him in agreement.

“Fine. No more mister nice Vlad.”

He charged an ectoblast in each hand, taking both of the phighters in their chests. They recoiled in the air, but then Anri started laughing even harder.

“You _really _shouldn’t have done that,” Bug said.

And then Anri lost consciousness. 

Vlad smirked. “What, is _that _your secret weapon? Playing dead? You’ll have to do a lot better than that to—”

Then their unconscious body fell on top of him. Little did he know that the concentrated power of memes and bad edits cause their host to have a density much higher than any material known to man or ghost. This effect is usually controlled subconsciously by the ghost’s aura, so that they avoid crushing things even when sitting. However, upon losing consciousness…

Vlad was completely crushed under their weight. 

Tali blew her kazoo. “Vlad Plasmius is unable to battle! Heyheyitsstillgay and Reallydumbdannyphantomaus win!”

“But who won the tournament?” Danny asked, eying Anri’s unconscious form. “It’s not over, is it?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get them woken up and have the real phinal round in a few minutes. Just sit back and eat some cheesecake in the meantime.”

Tucker winced. “Hard pass. Tried it. Did they make that thing with _mayo_?”

“Well, then do something else. I gotta help Vic yeet Vlad back to his ghost portal. Be back soon!”

XXX

The ring was repaved. Vic and Tali were back in their seats. Tucker had finally gotten some decent food.

Finally, _finally, _everything was ready for the final battle.

“Bug versus Anri, huh?” Tucker asked. “Is it too late to place bets?”

“Who would you bet for?” Danny asked in return.

“Probably Bug, honestly,” he said after taking a big bite from his burger. “They might be a pain, but they’re apparently pretty good. Not a ton of ghosts can get the whole duplication thing down.”

“_I’d _still vote for Anri,” Sam argued. “They’ve got more raw power. Plus it looks like they have more abilities than they let on.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out who’s gonna win!” Tali said brightly as the two ghosts once again entered the ring.

“Our phinal match here, pholks! Winner gets all glory, honor, bragging rights, and a year’s supply of free Denny’s pancakes.”

“Really?” Danny perked up at that. The Denny’s might not have the greatest food, but their pancakes were pretty good. And a year’s supply of free ones? He might enter the tournament next time for that.

“Really! So let’s get this phight started! From the Observant’s Keep, a ghost who once tried to eat fake grass out of an escape room, we have Reallydumbdannyphantomaus!”

“That was _one time!” _They shouted up at Tali, who just laughed.

“And their opponent from Nightmare Valley, a ghost with memes so dank they can’t be seen by the mortal eye, Heyheyitsstillgay!”

They waved to the crowd with a staff made entirely out of Danno faces.

“PHIGHT!”

Bug extended their PowerPoint staff like a lightsaber, red glow and all. “Ready to finish this, binch?”

“I _died _ready.”

They two ghosts clashed over the freshly-paved center of the ring. The Danno staff squealed each time it made contact with Bug’s PowerSaber.

“Is that, like, gonna burn your face too?” Tucker asked Danny. “Like some kind of voodoo or something?”

“Shut up, Tucker,” Sam said offhand, her entire attention glued to the fight.

Anri brought her Danno staff down in a heavy overhand blow, putting more of their extra-dense weight into the attack. Bug blocked, using all four of their arms to hold up the PowerSaber.

“You… have strength, I’ll give you that,” Bug said through gritted teeth. They couldn’t have blocked that attack if they’d used any of their energy on making duplicates; this was going to be tough.

“I’ve got more than that. I’ve been around longer than you can imagine,” They said, their face inches from Bug’s. “My core is ancient and fueled by things you’ve only seen in your nightmares.”

“Your… core, huh?” Bug asked, getting an idea. Twisting and diverting Anri’s staff, they slipped one hand free to punch them in the gut. Anri grunted and gave Bug an opening to dart away.

“You’re not gonna break my core that easily,” Anri said, spinning her staff and coming back in swinging. Bug snapped theirs into two halves, blocking with one red-glowing half and striking Anri’s side with the other.

“I don’t plan on breaking it.” Bug smirked. Then they plunged one half of the PowerSaber into Anri’s unprotected stomach.

Anri stopped for a moment, stunned at the wound—but then, as Danny knew would happen, the dark energy began coalescing around it.

“What’s Bug thinking?” He asked. “They know Anri can’t be beat like that!”

“Why not?” Sam asked. That’s right, she and Tucker weren’t there for that match.

“They’ve got a special power. Instead of being fueled by ectoplasm, the inside of their form is—well, just watch.”

The memes began to trickle from Anri’s stomach as they pulled out the Power Saber.

“You’re in for it now.” They grinned ominously. But to their surprise, Bug grinned back and stabbed the half of the PowerSaber they had left into the ground. The projector screen unfurled from it, casting blinding light onto Anri.

“That’s not going to—”

But blinding wasn’t what Bug had in mind. The two halves of the saber created a link—one that siphoned the memes from Anri’s form and projected them onto the screen.

“What—no!” Anri shouted, feeling their form begin to droop as it lost its power. Bug folded two hands behind their back, using the other two to point to the presentation.

“And if you’ll look at this diagram, you’ll see the different types of memes that Anri contains broken down by type and percentage. I would draw your attention to this slice of the pie chart, which depicts the percentage of bad Danno edits. It’s unusually high in comparison to the other types of memes, though they are all equally impressive…”

“You can’t just—my memes—my PowerPoint slides—how can you take them from me!?”

Bug pointed to the half of the saber that Anri still held. “You did that to yourself, my good binch. You should’ve kept your hands to yourself.”

“NOOOOO!”

And with that last shout, Anri’s flesh prison deflated completely. We won’t describe what that looked like, because we’re sure it’s already frightening enough, and probably wasn’t suitable for children to watch. However, the Denny’s does not have insurance for psychic and/or emotional damage caused by exposure to any of the phights, so hopefully everyone could deal with it on their own, or had officially-licensed, non-Spectra therapists who could help them cope.

“Dude, are they gonna be okay?” Tucker asked.

“Oh, Anri?” Tali laughed. “Don’t worry, they do that about once a century. They’ll replace those memes with even worse ones and come back stronger than ever. Kind of like molting, or something. But in the meantime everyone can press F to pay respects.”

Danny looked down and saw a tiny button labeled _F _on the armrest of his chair. He pressed it.

Tali blew her kazoo to the tune of Never Gonna Give You Up. Every verse. All three minutes and fifty-six seconds of it. The crowd listened with their arms raised in a respectful dab. Danny figured he might as well dab too, and eventually even Sam caught on to the mood and obliged.

When the song was over, Tali finally said the fated words.

“Heyheyitsstillgay is unable to battle! Reallydumbdannyphantomaus wins!”

XXX

“Tucker! Sam! Wait!” A voice called as Danny was about to fly them out of the Denny’s.

“Oh great.” A resigned glare slid over Sam’s face as she turned to the ghost. Of course, it had to be Bug. The one ghost she’d wanted to see get their butt kicked, and it never even happened.

“What do you want?” Tucker grumbled. “Come to make fun of us again?”

“No, well, actually…” Bug ruffled their blue hair with one hand, two others fidgeting in front of them. “I came to make up. Here.”

With their last remaining hand, they held out three CDs, one for each of the friends. Sam took hers with a critical glare.

“_Exactly what you think?” _She read the title. Bug’s signature was scrawled below it.

“It’s the song I wrote for the phinal. As a friendship gift.”

“If I wanted some lame music, I would’ve gotten something signed by Ember.”

Danny elbowed her, and she winced. Okay, maybe it _wasn’t _fair to hold a grudge for something Bug said one time. It wasn’t like they had to go out of the way to give them something.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Thanks.”

“What song is it?” Tucker asked, a little more brightly. He’d never learned to hold a grudge like she did.

“You’ll see!” They grinned. “But if you want to know just how _lame _my music is before that, come watch the closing ceremonies of the Phight.”

“Closing ceremonies?” Danny asked.

“What, Tali didn’t tell you? She does forget a lot. Anyway, we’re holding it out in the ring in a few minutes, if you’ve got time! See ya!”

They flew back out of the Denny’s, leaving Danny, Tucker, and Sam confused. They shared a glance, but figured they already knew what they’d be doing.

“So… who’s up for one last blast in the ghost zone?”

XXX

A few minutes later, the stadium was packed again, this time with ghosts holding candles over their heads. As Danny didn’t have a candle himself, he settled for lighting the tip of his finger and swaying it in time with the music that Bug began to sing. Tali backed them up on kazoo, putting her soul into the tune’s melancholy air.

_Oh Danno boy_

_The phights, the phights are calling_

_From den to den and through this portal side_

_The show is on and all the blows are falling_

_Tis you tis you must go and I must bide_

_But bring ye back when Denny’s is reopened_

_Or when the ring is hushed and in limbo_

_It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow_

_Oh Danno boy oh Danno boy I love you so._

Danny turned at the sound of sniffling.

“What?” Tucker asked, drying his eyes on his beret. “It’s a very emotional song!”

Sam sighed and patted his shoulder, to which he mumbled a _thank you_.

Then slowly and more orderly than they had after any of the phights, the ghosts began to filter away. Almost like they too were mourning the end of a tournament that they’d all enjoyed. As they left, Danny pondered the lyrics.

“Does this mean… the Denny’s is closing?”

“Only physically,” Tali said, suddenly appearing beside him. “But in our hearts, the Denny’s is forever.”

“I’m not sure if that was sappy or ominous,” Sam said.

“Both.” Tali smiled. “We’ll still be around, but we’ll be on the downlow until the next Phight.”

“When’s that?” Tucker asked.

“Next year, probably. It’s a lot of work to run a Phight Club on nothing but a few pancakes and the money we conned out of Vlad. But don’t worry, it’ll come sooner than you know it!”

And somehow, in spite of all the crazy things that had happened in the past month of watching the Phight, Danny looked forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Bug sang at the end was written by them! You can hear it sung here: https://reallydumbdannyphantomaus.tumblr.com/post/189414810086/reallydumbdannyphantomaus-phandomphightclub
> 
> i hope this throwback was enjoyable for y'all! it was for me :D


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